A.A.A.A.A.: An organization for drunks who drive. Absent: Exposed to the attacks of friends and acquaintances; defamed; slandered. Absentee: A person with an income who has had the forethought to remove himself from the sphere of exaction. Abstainer: A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure. Absurdity: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion. Academy: A modern school where football is taught. Accident: A condition in which presence of mind is good, but absence of body is better. Accordion: A bagpipe with pleats. Accuracy: The vice of being right. Acting: An art which consists of keeping the audience from coughing. Admiration: Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves. Adolescence: The stage between puberty and adultery. Adore: To venerate expectantly. Adult: One old enough to know better. Afternoon: That part of the day we spend worrying about how we wasted the morning. Alliance: In international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pocket that they cannot separately plunder a third. Alone: In bad company. Ambidextrous: Able to pick with equal skill a right-hand pocket or a left. Anoint: To grease a king or other great functionary already sufficiently slippery. Antonym: The opposite of the word you're trying to think of. Armadillo: To provide weapons to a Spanish pickle. Ass: The masculine of "lass". Automobile: A four-wheeled vehicle that runs up hills and down pedestrians. Baby: An alimentary canal with a loud voice at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other. Bacchus: A convenient deity invented by the ancients as an excuse for getting drunk. Barometer: An ingenious instrument which indicates what kind of weather we are having. Birth: The first and direst of all disasters. Bore: A person who talks when you wish him to listen. Bore: Someone who persists in holding his own views after we have enlightened him with ours. Boy: A noise with dirt on it. Brain: The apparatus with which we think that we think. Brain, v.: [as in "to brain"] To rebuke bluntly, but not pointedly; to dispel a source of error in an opponent. Bride: A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her. Broad-mindedness: The result of flattening high-mindedness out. Budget: A method of worrying before you spend money, as well as afterward. Cabbage: A familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man's head. California: From Latin 'calor', meaning "heat" (as in English 'calorie' or Spanish 'caliente'); and 'fornia', for "sexual intercourse" or "fornication." Hence: Tierra de California, "the land of hot sex." Camel: A horse designed by committee. Candidate: A person who gets money from the rich and votes from the poor to protect them from each other. Celebrity: A person who is known for his well-knownness. Charity: A thing that begins at home and usually stays there. Christ: A man who was born at least 5,000 years ahead of his time. Cigarette: A fire at one end, a fool at the other, and a bit of tobacco in between. Collaboration: A literary partnership based on the false assumption that the other fellow can spell. Committee: An animal with more than six legs and no brain. Computer: A machine dumber than any human and smarter than an administrator. Conservative: Someone too cowardly to fight and too fat to run. Consultant: A person who is paid more money to tell you how to run your business than you could possibly save, even if you did it right instead of the way he tells you. Consultants: Mystical people who ask a company for a number and then give it back to them. Conversation: A vocal competition in which the one who is catching his breath is called the listener. Coronation: The ceremony of investing a sovereign with the outward and visible signs of his divine right to be blown skyhigh with a dynamite bomb. Corrupt: In politics, holding an office of trust or profit. Coward: One who in a perilous emergency thinks with his legs. Creche: The result of bad driving in Kensington. Critic: A person who boasts himself hard to please because nobody tries to please him. Culture: The habit of being pleased with the best and knowing why. Cynic: A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be. Hence the custom among the Scythians of plucking out a cynic's eyes to improve his vision. Cynic: One who looks through rose-colored glasses with a jaundiced eye. Dawn: The time when men of reason go to bed. Debate: Something to help catch de fish. Debugger: De person who sold you de computer. Deliberation: The act of examining one's bread to determine which side it is buttered on. Diplomacy: The art of saying "nice doggy" until you can find a rock. Diplomat: A man who can convince his wife she'd look stout in a fur coat. Diplomat: Someone who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you will look forward to the trip. Distress: A disease incurred by exposure to the prosperity of a friend. Egotist: A person of low taste, more interested in himself than me. Electrocution: Burning at the stake with all the modern improvements. Elephant: A mouse with an operating system. Etymology: Some early etymological scholars came up with derivations that were hard for the public to believe. The term 'etymology' was formed from the Latin 'etus' ("eaten"), the root 'mal' ("bad"), and 'logy' ("study of"). It meant "the study of things that are hard to swallow." Expert: A person who avoids the small errors while sweeping on to the grand fallacy. Expert: From ex (has-been) and spurt (a drip under pressure). Fairy Tale: A horror story to prepare children for the newspapers. Faith: The quality that enables you to eat blackberry jam on a picnic without looking to see whether the seeds move. Fidelity: A virtue peculiar to those who are about to be betrayed. Forgetfulness: A gift of God bestowed upon debtors in compensation for their destitution of conscience. Friends: People who borrow my books and set wet glasses on them. Frisbeetarianism: The belief that when you die, your soul goes up the on roof and gets stuck. Frobnicate, v.: To manipulate or adjust, to tweak. Derived from FROBNITZ. Usually abbreviated to FROB. Thus one has the saying "to frob a frob". See TWEAK and TWIDDLE. Usage: FROB, TWIDDLE, and TWEAK sometimes connote points along a continuum. FROB connotes aimless manipulation; TWIDDLE connotes gross manipulation, often a coarse search for a proper setting; TWEAK connotes fine-tuning. If someone is turning a knob on an oscilloscope, then if he's carefully adjusting it he is probably tweaking it; if he is just turning it but looking at the screen he is probably twiddling it; but if he's just doing it because turning a knob is fun, he's frobbing it. Fubar: Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition. Garter: An elastic band intended to keep a woman from coming out of her stockings and desolating the country. Genius: The talent of a man who is dead. Hand: A singular instrument worn at the end of a human arm and commonly thrust into somebody's pocket. Happiness: An agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another. Hatred: A sentiment appropriate to the occasion of another's superiority. Heaven: A place where the wicked cease from troubling you with talk of their personal affairs, and the good listen with attention while you expound your own. Hermit: A deserter from the army of humanity. Hippogriff: An animal (now extinct) which was half horse and half griffin. The griffin was itself a compound creature, half lion and half eagle. The hippogriff was actually, therefore, only one quarter eagle, which is two dollars and fifty cents in gold. The study of zoology is full of surprises. Honorable: Afflicted with an impediment in one's reach. In legislative bodies, it is customary to mention all members as honorable; as, "the honorable gentleman is a scurvy cur." Idiot: A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling. Impartial: Unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage from espousing either side of a controversy or adopting either of two conflicting opinions. Incumbent: Person of liveliest interest to the outcumbents. Ingrate: A man who bites the hand that feeds him, and then complains of indigestion. Ink: A villainous compound of tannogallate of iron, gum-arabic, and water, chiefly used to facilitate the infection of idiocy and promote intellectual crime. Institute: An archaic school where football is not taught. Interpreter: One who enables two persons of different languages to understand each other by repeating to each what it would have been to the interpreter's advantage for the other to have said. Justice: A decision in your favor. Kin: An affliction of the blood. Kleptomaniac: A rich thief. Labor: One of the processes by which A acquires property for B. LISP: To call a spade a thpade. Liar: One who tells an unpleasant truth. Liar: A lawyer with a roving commission. Liberal: Someone too poor to be a capitalist and too rich to be a communist. Lie: A very poor substitute for the truth, but the only one discovered to date. Lunatic Asylum: The place where optimism most flourishes. Mad: Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence. Magpie: A bird whose thievish disposition suggested to someone that it might be taught to talk. Majority: That quality that distinguishes a crime from a law. Man: An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be. His chief occupation is extermination of other animals and his own species, which, however, multiplies with such insistent rapidity as to infest the whole habitable earth and Canada. Menu: A list of dishes which the restaurant has just run out of. Misfortune: The kind of fortune that never misses. Miss: A title with which we brand unmarried women to indicate that they are in the market. Molecule: The ultimate, indivisible unit of matter. It is distinguished from the corpuscle, also the ultimate, indivisible unit of matter, by a closer resemblance to the atom, also the ultimate, indivisible unit of matter. The ion differs from the molecule, the corpuscle and the atom in that it is an ion... Monday: In Christian countries, the day after the baseball game. Mythology: The body of a primitive people's beliefs concerning its origin, early history, heroes, deities and so forth, as distinguished from the true accounts which it invents later. November: The eleventh twelfth of a weariness. Nudists: People who wear one-button suits. Ocean: A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man -- who has no gills. Once, adv.: Enough. Peace: In international affairs, a period of cheating between two periods of fighting. Philosophy: Unintelligible answers to insoluble problems. Pig: An animal (Porcus omnivorous) closely allied to the human race by the splendor and vivacity of its appetite, which, however, is inferior in scope, for it balks at pig. Politician: From the Greek 'poly' ("many") and the French 'tete' ("head" or "face," as in 'tete-a-tete': head to head or face to face). Hence 'polytetien', a person of two or more faces. Positive: Mistaken at the top of one's voice. Professor: One who talks in someone else's sleep. Programmer: A person who passes as an exacting expert on the basis of being able to turn out, after innumerable punching, an infinite series of incomprehensible answers calculated with micrometric precision from vague assumptions based on debatable figures taken from inconclusive documents and carried out on instruments of problematical accuracy by persons of dubious reliability and questionable mentality for the avowed purpose of annoying and confounding a hopelessly defenseless department that was unfortunate enough to ask for the information in the first place. Puritan: Someone who is deathly afraid that someone somewhere is having fun. Reading: Thinking with someone else's head instead of one's own. Real World, The (n.) 1: The place generally used when referring to non-programming activities. 2: Where a computer science student goes after graduation; used pejoratively ("poor slob, he got his degree and had to go out into THE REAL WORLD"). Among programmers, discussing someone in residence there is not unlike talking about a deceased person. Saxaphone: An ill wind that nobody blows good. Seminars: From 'semi' and 'arse', hence, any half-assed discussion. Slang: Language that takes off its coat, spits on its hands, and goes to work. Snafu: Situation normal - all fucked up. Software: Formal evening attire for female computer analysts. Subtlety: The art of saying what you think and getting out of the way before it is understood. Tact: The art of making a point without making an enemy. Truthful: Dumb and illiterate. University: Like a software house, except the software's free, and it's usable, and it works, and if it breaks they'll quickly tell you how to fix it, and ... User n.: A programmer who will believe anything you tell him. Volcano: A mountain with hiccups. Water: An excellent drink if taken in the right spirit. Winter: The season in which people try to keep the house as warm as it was in the summer, when they complained about the heat. Wit: The salt with which the American humorist spoils his cookery... by leaving it out. Year: A period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments. The Abrams' Principle: The shortest distance between two points is off the wall. Anthony's Law of Force: Don't force it; get a larger hammer. Anthony's Law of the Workshop: Any tool when dropped, will roll into the least accessible corner of the workshop. Corollary: On the way to the corner, any dropped tool will first strike your toes. Fourth Law of Applied Terror: The night before the English History mid-term, your Biology instructor will assign 200 pages on planaria. Corollary: Every instructor assumes that you have nothing else to do except study for that instructor's course. Fifth Law of Applied Terror: If you are given an open-book exam, you will forget your book. Corollary: If you are given a take-home exam, you will forget where you live. Arnold's Laws of Documentation: 1.) If it should exist, it doesn't. 2.) If it does exist, it's out of date. 3.) Only documentation for useless programs transcends the first two laws. Arthur's Laws of Love: 1. People to whom you are attracted invariably think you remind them of someone else. 2. The love letter you finally got the courage to send will be delayed in the mail long enough for you to make a fool of yourself in person. Barach's Rule: An alcoholic is a person who drinks more than his own physician. Baruch's Observation: If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Barth's Distinction: There are two types of people: those who divide people into two types, and those who don't. Beifeld's Principle: The probability of a young man meeting a desirable and receptive young female increases by pyramidal progression when he is already in the company of: (1) a date, (2) his wife, (3) a better looking and richer male friend. First Law of Bicycling: No matter which way you ride, it's uphill and against the wind. Boling's Postulate: If you're feeling good, don't worry. You'll get over it. Bolub's Fourth Law of Computerdom: Project teams detest weekly progress reporting because it so vividly manifests their lack of progress. Boob's Law: You always find something in the last place you look. Boren's Laws: 1) When in charge, ponder. 2) When in trouble, delegate. 3) When in doubt, mumble. Bradley's Bromide: If computers get too powerful, we can organize them into a committee -- that will do them in. Brook's Law: Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later. Brooke's Law: Whenever a system becomes completely defined, some damn fool discovers something which either abolishes the system or expands it beyond recognition. Bucy's Law: Nothing is ever accomplished by a reasonable man. Second Law of Business Meetings: If there are two possible ways to spell a person's name, you will pick the wrong one. Corollary: If there is only one way to spell a name, you will spell it wrong, anyway. Cahn's Axiom: When all else fails, read the instructions. Grandpa Charnock's Law: You never really learn to swear until you learn to drive. Chisolm's First Corollary to Murphy's Second Law: When things just can't possibly get any worse, they will. Churchill's Commentary on Man: Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on. Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced technology in indistinguishable from magic. Mr. Cole's Axiom: The sum of the intelligence on the planet is a constant; the population is growing. Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage. Colvard's Logical Premises: All probabilities are 50%. Either a thing will happen or it won't. Colvard's Unconscionable Commentary: This is especially true when dealing with someone you're attracted to. Grelb's Commentary: Likelihoods, however, are 90% against you. Law of Communications: The inevitable result of improved and enlarged communications between different levels in a hierarchy is a vastly increased area of misunderstanding. Laws of Computer Programming: 1. Any given program, when running, is obsolete. 2. Any given program costs more and takes longer. 3. If a program is useful, it will have to be changed. 4. If a program is useless, it will have to be documented. 5. Any given program will expand to fill all available memory. 6. The value of a program is proportional the weight of its output. 7. Program complexity grows until it exceeds the capability of the programmer who must maintain it. A Law of Computer Programming: Make it possible for programmers to write in English and you will find the programmers cannot write in English. 43rd Law of Computing: Anything that can go wr fortune: Segmentation violation -- Core dumped Conway's Law: In any organization there will always be one person who knows what is going on. This person must be fired. Rule of Creative Research: 1) Never draw what you can copy. 2) Never copy what you can trace. 3) Never trace what you can cut out and paste down. Rule of Defactualization: Information deteriorates upward through bureaucracies. DeVries' Dilemma: If you hit two keys on the typewriter, the one you don't want hits the paper. Law of Probable Dispersal: Whatever it is that hits the fan will not be evenly distributed. Drew's Law of Highway Biology: The first bug to hit a clean windshield lands directly in front of your eyes. Ducharm's Axiom: If you view your problem closely enough you will recognize yourself as part of the problem. Ducharme's Precept: Opportunity always knocks at the least opportune moment. Ehrman's Commentary: 1. Things will get worse before they get better. 2. Who said things would get better? Emersons' Law of Contrariness: Our chief want in life is somebody who shall make us do what we can. Having found them, we shall then hate them for it. Non-Reciprocal Laws of Expectations: Negative expectations yield negative results. Positive expectations yield negative results. Rule of Feline Frustration: When your cat has fallen asleep on your lap and looks utterly content and adorable, you will suddenly have to go to the bathroom. The Fifth Rule: You have taken yourself too seriously. Finagle's Creed: Science is true. Don't be misled by facts. Finagle's First Law: If an experiment works, something has gone wrong. Finagle's Second Law: No matter what the anticipated result, there will always be someone eager to (a) misinterpret it, (b) fake it, or (c) believe it happened according to his own pet theory. Finagle's third Law: In any collection of data, the figure most obviously correct, beyond all need of checking, is the mistake. Corollaries: 1. Nobody whom you ask for help will see it. 2. The first person who stops by, whose advice you really don't want to hear, will see it immediately. Finagle's fourth Law: Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it only makes it worse. Flon's Law: There is not now, and never will be, a language in which it is the least bit difficult to write bad programs. Keep in mind always the two constant Laws of Frisbee: 1) The most powerful force in the world is that of a disc straining to land under a car, just out of reach (this force is technically termed "car suck"). 2) Never precede any maneuver by a comment more predictive than "Watch this!" Fudd's First Law of Opposition: Push something hard enough and it will fall over. Gilb's Fourth Law of Unreliability: Investment in reliability will increase until it exceeds the probable cost of errors, or until someone insists on getting some useful work done. Ginsberg's Theorem: 1. You can't win. 2. You can't break even. 3. You can't even quit the game. Freeman's Commentary on Ginsberg's theorem: Every major philosophy that attempts to make life seem meaningful is based on the negation of one part of Ginsberg's Theorem. To wit: 1. Capitalism is based on the assumption that you can win. 2. Socialism is based on the assumption that you can break even. 3. Mysticism is based on the assumption that you can quit the game. The Golden Rule of Arts and Sciences: The one who has the gold makes the rules. Goldenstern's Rules: 1. Always hire a rich attorney. 2. Never buy from a rich salesman. Gray's Law of Programming: n+1' trivial tasks are expected to be accomplished in the same time as '_ n' tasks. Logg's Rebuttal to Gray's Law: n+1' trivial tasks take twice as long as '_ n' trivial tasks. Rule of the Great: When people you greatly admire appear to be thinking deep thoughts, they probably are thinking about lunch. Grelb's Reminder: Eighty percent of all people consider themselves to be above average drivers. Hacker's Law: The belief that enhanced understanding will necessarily stir a nation to action is one of mankind's oldest illusions. Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. Harris' Lament: All the good ones are taken. Harrisberger's Fourth Law of the Lab: Experience is directly proportional to the amount of equipment ruined. Hartley's First Law: You can lead a horse to water, but if you can get him to float on his back, you've got something. Hartley's Second Law: Never sleep with anyone crazier than yourself. Harvard Law: Under the most rigorously controlled conditions of pressure, temperature, volume, humidity, and other variables, the organism will do as it damn well pleases. Heller's Law: The first myth of management is that it exists. Johnson's Corollary to Heller's Law: Nobody really knows what is going on anywhere within the organisation. First Rule of History: History doesn't repeat itself -- historians merely repeat each other. Hoare's Law of Large Problems: Inside every large problem is a small problem struggling to get out. Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take Hofstadter's Law into account. Horngren's Observation: Among economists, the real world is often a special case. Howe's Law: Everyone has a scheme that will not work. Hurewitz's Memory Principle: The chance of forgetting something is directly proportional to.....to........uh.............. Imhoff's Law: The organization of any bureaucracy is very much like a septic tank - the really big chunks always rise to the top. Iron Law of Distribution: Them that has, gets. Issawi's Laws of Progress: The Course of Progress: Most things get steadily worse. The Path of Progress: A shortcut is the longest distance between two points. Jacquin's Postulate on Democratic Government: No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session. Jenkinson's Law: It won't work. Johnson's First Law: When any mechanical contrivance fails, it will do so at the most inconvenient possible time. Canada Bill Jones' Motto: It's morally wrong to allow suckers to keep their money. Supplement: A .44 magnum beats four aces. Jones' Motto: Friends come and go, but enemies accumulate. Jones' First Law: Anyone who makes a significant contribution to any field of endeavor, and stays in that field long enough, becomes an obstruction to its progress -- in direct proportion to the importance of their original contribution. Jones' Second Law: The man who smiles when things go wrong has thought of someone to blame it on. Katz' Law: Man and nations will act rationally when all other possibilities have been exhausted. The Kennedy Constant: Don't get mad -- get even. Kinkler's First Law: Responsibility always exceeds authority. Kinkler's Second Law: All the easy problems have been solved. Lackland's Laws: 1. Never be first. 2. Never be last. 3. Never volunteer for anything. Langsam's Laws: 1) Everything depends. 2) Nothing is always. 3) Everything is sometimes. Law of fives ( Adam Weishaupt, 1776): Every occurence is related to the number five, and this relation can always be proven. Lieberman's Law: Everybody lies, but it doesn't matter since nobody listens. Leibowitz's Rule: When hammering a nail, you will never hit your finger if you hold the hammer with both hands. Lowery's Law: If it jams -- force it. If it breaks, it needed replacing anyway. Lubarsky's Law of Cybernetic Entomology: There's always one more bug. McGowan's Madison Avenue Axiom: If an item is advertised as "under $50", you can bet it's not $19.95. Maier's Law: If the facts do not conform to the theory, they must be disposed of. Corollaries: 1. The bigger the theory, the better. 2. The experiment may be considered a success if no more than 50% of the observed measurements must be discarded to obtain a correspondence with the theory. Main's Law: For every action there is an equal and opposite government program. Malek's Law: Any simple idea will be worded in the most complicated way. Meader's Law: Whatever happens to you, it will previously have happened to everyone you know, only more so. H. L. Mencken's Law: Those who can -- do. Those who can't -- teach. Martin's Extension: Those who cannot teach -- administrate. Mencken and Nathan's Second Law of The Average American: All the postmasters in small towns read all the postcards. Mencken and Nathan's Ninth Law of The Average American: The quality of a champagne is judged by the amount of noise the cork makes when it is popped. Mencken and Nathan's Fifteenth Law of The Average American: The worst actress in the company is always the manager's wife. Mencken and Nathan's Sixteenth Law of The Average American: Milking a cow is an operation demanding a special talent that is possessed only by yokels, and no person born in a large city can never hope to acquire it. Meskimen's Law: There's never time to do it right, but there's always time to do it over. Miksch's Law: If a string has one end, then it has another end. Mitchell's Law of Committees: Any simple problem can be made insoluble if enough meetings are held to discuss it. Mollison's Bureaucracy Hypothesis: If an idea can survive a bureaucratic review and be implemented it wasn't worth doing. Mosher's Law of Software Engineering: Don't worry if it doesn't work right. If everything did, you'd be out of a job. Murphy's Law of Research: Enough research will tend to support your theory. Naeser's Law: You can make it foolproof, but you can't make it damnfoolproof. Newton's Little-Known Seventh Law: A bird in the hand is safer than one overhead. Ninety-Ninety Rule of Project Schedules: The first ninety percent of the task takes ninety percent of the time, and the last ten percent takes the other ninety percent. Oliver's Law: Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it. Osborn's Law: Constants aren't; variables won't. Pardo's First Postulate: Anything good in life is either illegal, immoral, or fattening. Arnold's Addendum to Pardo's First Postulate: Anything not fitting into these categories causes cancer in rats. Parker's Law: Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone. Parkinson's Fourth Law: The number of people in any working group tends to increase regardless of the amount of work to be done. Parkinson's Fifth Law: If there is a way to delay in important decision, the good bureaucracy, public or private, will find it. Paul's First Law: You can't fall off the floor. Paul's Second Law: In America, it's not how much an item costs, it's how much you save. Captain Penny's Law: You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you Can't Fool Mom. Law of the Perversity of Nature: You cannot successfully determine beforehand which side of the bread to butter. Peter's Law of Substitution: Look after the molehills, and the mountains will look after themselves. The Peter Principle: In an organization, each person rises to the level of his own incompetency. The Third Law of Photography: If you did manage to get any good shots, they will be ruined when someone inadvertently opens the darkroom door and all of the dark leaks out. Pohl's law: Nothing is so good that somebody, somewhere, will not hate it. Preudhomme's Law of Window Cleaning: It's on the other side. First Law of Procrastination: Procrastination shortens the job and places the responsibility for its termination on someone else (i.e., the authority who imposed the deadline). Second Law of Procrastination: Procrastination avoids boredom; one never has the feeling that there is nothing important to do. Putt's Law: Technology is dominated by two types of people: Those who understand what they do not manage. Those who manage what they do not understand. Ray's Rule of Precision: Measure with a micrometer. Mark with chalk. Cut with an axe. Fourth Law of Revision: It is usually impractical to worry beforehand about interferences -- if you have none, someone will make one for you. Rocky's Lemma of Innovation Prevention Unless the results are known in advance, funding agencies will reject the proposal. The Roman Rule: The one who says it cannot be done should never interrupt the one who is doing it. Van Roy's Law: An unbreakable toy is useful for breaking other toys. Rudin's Law: If there is a wrong way to do something, most people will do it every time. Sattinger's Law: It works better if you plug it in. Scott's First Law: No matter what goes wrong, it will probably look right. Scott's Second Law: When an error has been detected and corrected, it will be found to have been wrong in the first place. Corollary: After the correction has been found in error, it will be impossible to fit the original quantity back into the equation. Law of Selective Gravity: An object will fall so as to do the most damage. Jenning's Corollary: The chance of the bread falling with the buttered side down is directly proportional to the cost of the carpet. Serocki's Stricture: Marriage is always a bachelor's last option. Shaw's Principle: Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will want to use it. Silverman's Law: If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will. Simon's Law: Everything put together falls apart sooner or later. Skinner's Constant (or Flannagan's Finagling Factor): That quantity which, when multiplied by, divided by, added to, or subtracted from the answer you get, gives you the answer you should have gotten. Slick's Three Laws of the Universe: 1) Nothing in the known universe travels faster than a bad check. 2) A quarter-ounce of chocolate = four pounds of fat. 3) There are two types of dirt: the dark kind, which is attracted to light objects, and the light kind, which is attracted to dark objects. First Law of Socio-Genetics: Celibacy is not hereditary. Underlying Principle of Socio-Genetics: Superiority is recessive. Sodd's Second Law: Sooner or later, the worst possible set of circumstances is bound to occur. Snafu principle: Communication is only possible among equals. Spark's Sixth Rule for Managers: If a subordinate asks you a pertinent question, look at him as if he had lost his senses. When he looks down, paraphrase the question back at him. Steele's Plagiarism of Somebody's Philosophy: Everybody should believe in something -- I believe I'll have another drink. Steinbach's Guideline for Systems Programming: Never test for an error condition you don't know how to handle. Sturgeon's Law: 90% of everything is crap. Swipple's Rule of Order: He who shouts the loudest has the floor. The Three Laws of Thermodynamics: The first law: You can't get anything without working for it. The second law: The most you can accomplish by working is to break even. The third law: You can only break even at absolute zero. Turnaucka's Law: The attention span of a computer is only as long as its electrical cord. Tussman's Law: Nothing is as inevitable as a mistake whose time has come. Vail's Second Axiom: The amount of work to be done increases in proportion to the amount of work already completed. Velilind's Laws of Experimentation: 1. If reproducibility may be a problem, conduct the test only once. 2. If a straight line fit is required, obtain only two data points. Watson's Law: The reliability of machinery is inversely proportional to the number and significance of any persons watching it. Weiler's Law: Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself. Weinberg's First Law: Progress is made on alternate Fridays. Weinberg's Second Law: If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization. Weiner's Law of Libraries: There are no answers, only cross references. Wiker's Law: Government expands to absorb all available revenue and then some. Williams and Holland's Law: If enough data is collected, anything may be proven by statistical methods. Zymurgy's Law of Volunteer Labor: People are always available for work in the past tense. A mathematician named Ben Often wanted some function of _ If it couldn't be done, He'd try _ n - 1, And do it again and again! There was a young Lisper from Forth, Who wanted to visit the North. So he rode o'er the earth And the bridge o'er the firth On his jauntily galloping horth. A very intelligent turtle Found programming UNIX a hurdle: The system, you see, Ran as slow as did he, And that's not saying much for the turtle. An insect was heard to complain, That a chemist had damaged his brain. The cause of his sorrow Was paradichloro- Diphenyltrichloroethane. There was a young poet named Dan, Whose poetry never would scan. When told this was so, He said, "Yes, I know. It's because I try to put every possible syllable into that last line that I can." An eager young poet from China Had a feeling for rhythm much finer; His poems would tend To come to an end Suddenly. There was a young man from Peru Whose limericks would end at line two. A limerick packs laughs anatomical Into space that is quite economical. But the good ones I've seen So seldom are clean, And the clean ones so seldom are comical. Flappity, floppity, flip The mouse on the m" obius strip; The strip revolved, The mouse dissolved In a chronodimensional skip. There was a young man from Hong Kong, Who composed a most marvellous song. The tune that he wrote Was all on one note -- But it sounded just great on a gong. When they catch a chinchilla in Chile, They shave off its beard, willy-nilly, With a very small blade, Just to say that they've made A Chilean chinchilla's chin chilly. There was a young lady from Hyde Who ate a green apple and died. While her lover lamented, The apple fermented And made cider inside her inside. A dozen, a gross, and a score, Plus three times the square root of four, Divided by seven, Plus five times eleven, Equals nine squared plus zero, no more. There once was a girl named Irene Who lived on distilled kerosene But she started absorbin' A new hydrocarbon And since then has never benzene. A computer, to print out a fact, Will divide, multiply, and subtract. But this output can be No more than debris, If the input was short of exact. Limericks are art forms complex; Their topics run chiefly to sex. They usually have virgins, And masculine urgin's, And other erotic effects. There once was an old man from Ealing, Who had an expectorant feeling: But a sign on the door Said "Don't spit on the floor" - So he looked up and spat on the ceiling. Another Glitch in the Call ------- ------ -- --- ---- (Sung to the tune of a recent Pink Floyd song.) We don't need no indirection We don't need no flow control No data typing or declarations Did you leave the lists alone? Hey! Hacker! Leave those lists alone! Chorus: All in all, it's just a pure-LISP function call. All in all, it's just a pure-LISP function call. "You are old, Father William," the young man said, "All your papers these days look the same; Those William's would be better unread -- Do these facts never fill you with shame?" "In my youth," Father William replied to his son, "I wrote wonderful papers galore; But the great reputation I found that I'd won, Made it pointless to think any more." "You are old," said the youth, "as I mentioned before, And make errors few people could bear; You complain about everyone's English but yours -- Do you really think this is quite fair?" "I make lots of mistakes," Father William declared, "But my stature these days is so great That no critic can hurt me -- I've got them all scared, And to stop me it's now far too late." "You are old," said the youth, "and your programs don't run, And there isn't one language you like; Yet of useful suggestions for help you have none -- Have you thought about taking a hike?" "Since I never write programs," his father replied, "Every language looks equally bad; Yet the people keep paying to read all my books And don't realize that they've been had." "You are old," said the youth, "and I'm told by my peers That your lectures bore people to death. Yet you talk at one hundred conventions per year -- Don't you think that you should save your breath?" "I have answered three questions and that is enough," Said his father, "Don't give yourself airs! Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff? Be off, or I'll kick you downstairs!" Speak roughly to your little VAX, and boot it when it crashes; It knows that one cannot relax Because the paging thrashes! Wow! Wow! Wow! I speak severely to my VAX, and boot it when it crashes; In spite of all my favorite hacks My jobs it always thrashes! Wow! Wow! Wow! The Pig, if I am not mistaken, Gives us ham and pork and Bacon. Let others think his heart is big, I think it stupid of the Pig. I think that I shall never see A billboard lovely as a tree. Perhaps, unless the billboards fall I'll never see a tree at all. I'm very good at integral and differential calculus, I know the scientific names of beings animalculous; In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral, I am the very model of a modern Major-General. -- Gilbert and Sullivan "The Pirates of Penzance" Oh don't the days seem lank and long When all goes right and none goes wrong, And isn't your life extremely flat With nothing whatever to grumble at! The rain it raineth on the just And also on the unjust fella, But chiefly on the just, because The unjust steals the just's umbrella. Buzz off, Banana Nose; Relieve mine eyes Of hateful soreness, purge mine ears of corn; Less dear than army ants in apple pies Art thou, old prune-face, with thy chestnuts worn, Dropt from thy peeling lips like lousy fruit; Like honeybees upon the perfum'd rose They suck, and like the double-breasted suit Are out of date; therefore, Banana Nose, Go fly a kite, thy welcome's overstayed; And stem the produce of thy waspish wits: Thy logick, like thy locks, is disarrayed; Thy cheer, like thy complexion, is the pits. Be off, I say; go bug somebody new, Scram, beat it, get thee hence, and nuts to you. Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night, God said, "Let Newton be," and all was light. It did not last; the devil howling "Ho! Let Einstein be!" restored the status quo. INVENTORY Four be the things I am wiser to know: Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe. Four be the things I'd been better without: Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt. Three be the things I shall never attain: Envy, content, and sufficient champagne. Three be the things I shall have till I die: Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye. Her locks an ancient lady gave Her loving husband's life to save; And men -- they honored so the dame -- Upon some stars bestowed her name. But to our modern married fair, Who'd give their lords to save their hair, No stellar recognition's given. There are not stars enough in heaven. Come, let us hasten to a higher plane, Where dyads tread the fairy fields of Venn, Their indices bedecked from one to _ Commingled in an endless Markov chain! Come, every frustum longs to be a cone, And every vector dreams of matrices. Hark to the gentle gradient of the breeze: It whispers of a more ergodic zone. In Riemann, Hilbert or in Banach space Let superscripts and subscripts go their ways. Our symptotes no longer out of phase, We shall encounter, counting, face to face. I'll grant thee random access to my heart, Thoul't tell me all the constants of thy love; And so we two shall all love's lemmas prove And in our bound partition never part. Cancel me not -- for what then shall remain? Abscissas, some mantissas, modules, modes, A root or two, a torus and a node: The inverse of my verse, a null domain. I see the eigenvalue in thine eye, I hear the tender tensor in thy sigh. Bernoulli would have been content to die Had he but known such _ a-squared cos 2(thi)! Roses are red, Violets are blue. Some poems rhyme -- But this one doesn't even scan properly. In the days of old, When Knights were bold, And women were too cautious; Oh, those gallant days, When women were women, And men were really obnoxious... Eleanor Rigby -- Sits at the keyboard and waits for a line on the screen; Lives in a dream; Waits for a signal, finding some code that will make the machine do some more. What is it for? All the lonely users, where do they all come from? All the lonely users, why does it take so long? WHERE CAN THE MATTER BE Oh, dear, where can the matter be When it's converted to energy? There is a slight loss of parity. Johnny's so long at the fair. PLUNDERER'S THEME (to Supercalifragilisticexpialidocius) Pillage, rape, and loot and burn, but all in moderation. If you do the things we say, then you'll soon rule the nation. Kill your foes and enemies and then kill your relations. Pillage, rape, and loot and burn, but all in moderation. IBM had a PL/I, Its syntax worse than JOSS; And everywhere this language went, It was a total loss. System/3! System/3! See how it runs! See how it runs! Its monitor loses so totally! It runs all its programs in RPG! It's made by our favorite monopoly! System/3! As I was passing Project MAC, I met a Quux with seven hacks. Every hack had seven bugs; Every bug had seven manifestations; Every manifestation had seven symptoms. Symptoms, manifestations, bugs, and hacks, How many losses at Project MAC? Reclaimer, spare that tree! Take not a single bit! It used to point to me, Now I'm protecting it. It was the reader's CONS That made it, paired by dot; Now, GC, for the nonce, Thou shalt reclaim it not. 99 blocks of crud on the disk, 99 blocks of crud! You patch a bug, and dump it again: 100 blocks of crud on the disk! 100 blocks of crud on the disk, 100 blocks of crud! You patch a bug, and dump it again: 101 blocks of crud on the disk!... 'Twas midnight, and the UNIX hacks Did gyre and gimble in their cave All mimsy was the CS-VAX And Cory raths outgrave. "Beware the software rot, my son! The faults that bite, the jobs that thrash! Beware the broken pipe, and shun The frumious system crash!" Hark,Hark,the dogs do bark The Duke is fond of kittens He likes to take their insides out And use them for his mittens. From "The thirteen clocks" Now I lay me down to sleep I pray the double lock will keep; May no brick through the window break, And, no one rob me till I awake. I really hate this damned machine I wish that they would sell it. It never does quite what I want But only what I tell it. My own dear love, he is strong and bold And he cares not what comes after. His words ring sweet as a chime of gold, And his eyes are lit with laughter. He is jubilant as a flag unfurled -- Oh, a girl, she'd not forget him. My own dear love, he is all my world -- And I wish I'd never met him. My love, he's mad, and my love, he's fleet, And a wild young wood-thing bore him! The ways are fair to his roaming feet, And the skies are sunlit for him. As sharply sweet to my heart he seems As the fragrance of acacia. My own dear love, he is all my dreams -- And I wish he were in Asia. My love runs by like a day in June, And he makes no friends of sorrows. He'll tread his galloping rigadoon In the pathway or the morrows. He'll live his days where the sunbeams start Nor could storm or wind uproot him. My own dear love, he is all my heart -- And I wish somebody'd shoot him. If all be true that I do think, There be Five Reasons why one should Drink; Good friends, good wine, or being dry, Or lest we should be by-and-by, Or any other reason why. Once Law was sitting on the bench And Mercy knelt a-weeping. "Clear out!" he cried, "disordered wench! Nor come before me creeping. Upon you knees if you appear, 'Tis plain you have no standing here." Then Justice came. His Honor cried: "YOUR states? -- Devil seize you!" "Amica curiae," she replied -- "Friend of the court, so please you." "Begone!" he shouted -- "There's the door -- I never saw your face before!" But scientists, who ought to know Assure us that it must be so. Oh, let us never, never doubt What nobody is sure about. -- Hilaire Belloc How doth the little crocodile Improve his shining tail, And pour the waters of the Nile On every golden scale! How cheerfully he seems to grin, How neatly spreads his claws, And welcomes little fishes in, With gently smiling jaws! -- Lewis Carrol Speak roughly to your little boy, And beat him when he sneezes: He only does it to annoy Because he knows it teases. Wow! wow! wow! I speak severely to my boy, And beat him when he sneezes: For he can thoroughly enjoy The pepper when he pleases! Wow! wow! wow! -- Lewis Carrol Il brilgue: les t^ oves lubricillieux Se gyrent et frillant dans le guave, Enm^ es sont les gougebosqueux, Et le m^ omerade horgrave. Es brilig war. Die schlichte Toven Wirrten und wimmelten in Waben; Und aller-m" umsige Burggoven Dir mohmen R" ath ausgraben. "You are old, father William," the young man said, "And your hair has become very white; And yet you incessantly stand on your head -- Do you think, at your age, it is right?" "In my youth," father William replied to his son, "I feared it might injure the brain; But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none, Why, I do it again and again." -- Lewis Carrol "You are old," said the youth, "as I mentioned before, And have grown most uncommonly fat; Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door -- Pray what is the reason of that?" "In my youth," said the sage, as he shook his grey locks, "I kept all my limbs very supple By the use of this ointment -- one shilling the box -- Allow me to sell you a couple?" -- Lewis Carrol "You are old," said the youth, "and your jaws are too weak For anything tougher than suet; Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak -- Pray, how did you manage to do it?" "In my youth," said his father, "I took to the law, And argued each case with my wife; And the muscular strength which it gave to my jaw, Has lasted the rest of my life." -- Lewis Carrol "You are old," said the youth, "one would hardly suppose That your eye was as steady as ever; Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose -- What made you so awfully clever?" "I have answered three questions, and that is enough," Said his father. "Don't give yourself airs! Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff? Be off, or I'll kick you down stairs!" -- Lewis Carrol The sun was shining on the sea, Shining with all his might: He did his very best to make The billows smooth and bright -- And this was very odd, because it was The middle of the night. -- Lewis Carroll I sent a letter to the fish, I told them, "This is what I wish." The little fishes of the sea, They sent an answer back to me. The little fishes' answer was "We cannot do it, sir, because..." I sent a letter back to say It would be better to obey. But someone came to me and said "The little fishes are in bed." I said to him, and I said it plain "Then you must wake them up again." I said it very loud and clear, I went and shouted in his ear. But he was very stiff and proud, He said "You needn't shout so loud." And he was very proud and stiff, He said "I'll go and wake them if..." I took a kettle from the shelf, I went to wake them up myself. But when I found the door was locked I pulled and pushed and kicked and knocked, And when I found the door was shut, I tried to turn the handle, But... "Is that all?" asked Alice. "That is all." said Humpty Dumpty. "Goodbye." -- Lewis Carrol Oh, when I was in love with you, Then I was clean and brave, And miles around the wonder grew How well did I behave. And now the fancy passes by, And nothing will remain, And miles around they'll say that I Am quite myself again. -- A. E. Housman This is for all ill-treated fellows Unborn and unbegot, For them to read when they're in trouble And I am not. -- A. E. Housman "Terence, this is stupid stuff: You eat your victuals fast enough; There can't be much amiss, 'tis clear, To see the rate you drink your beer. But oh, good Lord, the verse you make, It gives a chap the belly-ache. The cow, the old cow, she is dead; It sleeps well the horned head: We poor lads, 'tis our turn now To hear such tunes as killed the cow. Pretty friendship 'tis to rhyme Your friends to death before their time. Moping, melancholy mad: Come, pipe a tune to dance to, lad." -- A. E. Housman ...And malt does more than Milton can to justify God's ways to man -- A. E. Housman Who made the world I cannot tell; 'Tis made, and here am I in hell. My hand, though now my knuckles bleed, I never soiled with such a deed. -- A. E. Housman Hark, the Herald Tribune sings, Advertising wondrous things. Angels we have heard on High Tell us to go out and Buy. -- Tom Lehrer Seduced, shaggy Samson snored. She scissored short. Sorely shorn, Soon shackled slave, Samson sighed, Silently scheming, Sightlessly seeking Some savage, spectacular suicide. -- Stanislaw Lem Love is a word that is constantly heard, Hate is a word that is not. Love, I am told, is more precious than gold. Love, I have read, is hot. But hate is the verb that to me is superb, And Love but a drug on the mart. Any kiddie in school can love like a fool, But Hating, my boy, is an Art. -- Ogden Nash "Reflections on Ice-Breaking" Candy Is dandy But liquor Is quicker. -- Ogden Nash The Preacher, the Politician, the Teacher, Were each of them once a kiddie. A child, indeed, is a wonderful creature. Do I want one? God Forbiddie! -- Ogden Nash Children aren't happy without something to ignore, And that's what parents were created for. -- Ogden Nash Certainly there are things in life that money can't buy, but it's very funny-- Did you ever try buying them without money? -- Ogden Nash There's little in taking or giving, There's little in water or wine: This living, this living, this living, Was never a project of mine. Oh, hard is the struggle, and sparse is The gain of the one at the top, For art is a form of catharsis, And love is a permanent flop, And work is the provence of cattle, And rest's for a clam in a shell, So I'm thinking of throwing the battle -- Would you kindly direct me to hell? -- Dorothy Parker The ladies men admire, I've heard, Would shudder at a wicked word. Their candle gives a single light; They'd rather stay at home at night. They do not keep awake till three, Nor read erotic poetry. They never sanction the impure, Nor recognize an overture. They shrink from powders and from paints... So far, I've had no complaints. -- Dorothy Parker THEORY Into love and out again, Thus I went and thus I go. Spare your voice, and hold your pen: Well and bitterly I know All the songs were ever sung, All the words were ever said; Could it be, when I was young, Someone dropped me on my head? -- Dorothy Parker If I don't drive around the park, I'm pretty sure to make my mark. If I'm in bed each night by ten, I may get back my looks again. If I abstain from fun and such, I'll probably amount to much; But I shall stay the way I am, Because I do not give a damn. -- Dorothy Parker Here in my heart, I am Helen; I'm Aspasia and Hero, at least. I'm Judith, and Jael, and Madame de Sta" I'm Salome, moon of the East. Here in my soul I am Sappho; Lady Hamilton am I, as well. In me R' ecamier vies with Kitty O'Shea, With Dido, and Eve, and poor nell. I'm all of the glamorous ladies At whose beckoning history shook. But you are a man, and see only my pan, So I stay at home with a book. -- Dorothy Parker FIGHTING WORDS Say my love is easy had, Say I'm bitten raw with pride, Say I am too often sad -- Still behold me at your side. Say I'm neither brave nor young, Say I woo and coddle care, Say the devil touched my tongue -- Still you have my heart to wear. But say my verses do not scan, And I get me another man! -- Dorothy Parker COMMENT Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song, A medley of extemporanea; And love is thing that can never go wrong; And I am Marie of Roumania. -- Dorothy Parker Razors pain you; Rivers are damp; Acids stain you; And drugs cause cramp. Guns aren't lawful; Nooses give; Gas smells awful; You might as well live. -- Dorothy Parker A lady with one of her ears applied To an open keyhole heard, inside, Two female gossips in converse free -- The subject engaging them was she. "I think", said one, "and my husband thinks That she's a prying, inquisitive minx!" As soon as no more of it she could hear The lady, indignant, removed her ear. "I will not stay," she said with a pout, "To hear my character lied about!" -- Gopete Sherany We wish you a Hare Krishna We wish you a Hare Krishna We wish you a Hare Krishna And a Sun Myung Moon! --Maxwell Smart If I traveled to the end of the rainbow As Dame Fortune did intend, Murphy would be there to tell me The pot's at the other end. -- Bert Whitney Probable-Possible, my black hen, She lays eggs in the Relative When. She doesn't lay eggs in the Positive Now Because she's unable to postulate how. -- Frederick Winsor Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-three million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea... -- Douglas Adams "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" Bypasses are devices that allow some people to dash from point A to point B very fast while other people dash from point B to point A very fast. People living at point C, being a point directly in between, are often given to wonder what's so great about point A that so many people from point B are so keen to get there and what's so great about point B that so many people from point B are so keen to get _ e. They often wish that people would just once and for all work out where the hell they wanted to be. -- Douglas Adams "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. -- Douglas Adams "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" With a rubber duck, one's never alone. -- Douglas Adams "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened. -- Douglas Adams "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space. -- Douglas Adams "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" I have seen the future and it is just like the present, only longer. -- Kehlog Albran Then a man said: Speak to us of Expectations. He then said: If a man does not see or hear the waters of the Jordan, then he should not taste the pomegranate or ply his wares in an open market. If a man would not labour in the salt and rock quarries then he should not accept of the Earth that which he refuses to give of himself. Such a man would expect a pear of a peach tree. Such a man would expect a stone to lay an egg. Such a man would expect Sears to assemble a lawnmower. -- Kehlog Albran A priest asked: What is Fate, Master? And he answered: It is that which gives a beast of burden its reason for existence. It is that which men in former times had to bear upon their backs. It is that which has caused nations to build byways from City to City upon which carts and coaches pass, and alongside which inns have come to be built to stave off Hunger, Thirst and Weariness. And that is Fate? said the priest. Fate... I thought you said Freight, responded the Master. That's all right, said the priest. I wanted to know what Freight was too. -- Kehlog Albran "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle if it is lightly greased." -- Kehlog Albran "Arguments with furniture are rarely productive." -- Kehlog Albran "Even the best of friends cannot attend each other's funeral." -- Kehlog Albran "It was pleasant to me to get a letter from you the other day. Perhaps I should have found it pleasanter if I had been able to decipher it. I don't think that I mastered anything beyond the date (which I knew) and the signature (which I guessed at). There's a singular and a perpetual charm in a letter of yours; it never grows old, it never loses its novelty .... Other letters are read and thrown away and forgotten, but yours are kept forever -- unread. One of them will last a reasonable man a lifetime." -- Thomas Aldrich California is a fine place to live -- if you happen to be an orange. -- Fred Allen To YOU I'm an atheist; to God, I'm the Loyal Opposition. -- Woody Allen It's not that I'm afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it happens. -- Woody Allen. The shortest distance between two points is under construction. -- Noelie Altito I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them. -- Isaac Asimov United Nations, New York, December 25. The peace and joy of the Christmas season was marred by a proclamation of a general strike of all the military forces of the world. Panic reigns in the hearts of all the patriots of every persuasion. Meanwhile, fears of universal disaster sank to an all-time low over the world. -- Isaac Asimov Die? I should say not, dear fellow. No Barrymore would allow such a conventional thing to happen to him. -- John Barrymore's dying words What use is magic if it can't save a unicorn? -- Peter S. Beagle "Earth is a great funhouse without the fun." -- Jeff Berner It has been observed that one's nose is never so happy as when it is thrust into the affairs of another, from which some physiologists have drawn the inference that the nose is devoid of the sense of smell. -- Ambrose Bierce In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of the scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first. -- Ambrose Bierce Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum -- "I think that I think, therefore I think that I am." -- Ambrose Bierce There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy... -- Ambrose Bierce Noncombatant: A dead Quaker. -- Ambrose Bierce Dentist: A prestidigitator who, putting metal in one's mouth, pulls coins out of one's pockets. -- Ambrose Bierce Reporter: A writer who guesses his way to the truth and dispels it with a tempest of words. -- Ambrose Bierce A total abstainer is one who abstains from everything but abstention, and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others. -- Ambrose Bierce Acquaintance: A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to. -- Ambrose Bierce ...but as records of courts and justice are admissible, it can easily be proved that powerful and malevolent magicians once existed and were a scourge to mankind. The evidence (including confession) upon which certain women were convicted of witchcraft and executed was without a flaw; it is still unimpeachable. The judges' decisions based on it were sound in logic and in law. Nothing in any existing court was ever more thoroughly proved than the charges of witchcraft and sorcery for which so many suffered death. If there were no witches, human testimony and human reason are alike destitute of value. -- Ambrose Bierce Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing. -- Wernher von Braun "Why be a man when you can be a success?" -- Bertold Brecht "Grub first, then ethics." -- Bertold Brecht "Just once, I wish we would encounter an alien menace that wasn't immune to bullets." -- The Brigadier, from Dr. Who "I don't have any solution but I certainly admire the problem." -- Ashleigh Brilliant "I may not be totally perfect, but parts of me are excellent." -- Ashleigh Brilliant Egotism is the anesthetic given by a kindly nature to relieve the pain of being a damned fool. -- Bellamy Brooks "You can't teach people to be lazy - either they have it, or they don't." -- Dagwood Bumstead "I quite agree with you," said the Duchess; "and the moral of that is -- 'Be what you would seem to be' -- or, if you'd like it put more simply -- 'Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.'" -- Lewis Carrol "I don't know what you mean by 'glory,'" Alice said. Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. "Of course you don't -- till I tell you. I meant 'there's a nice knock-down argument for you!'" "But glory doesn't mean 'a nice knock-down argument,'" Alice objected. "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less." "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things." "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master -- that's all." -- Lewis Carrol "Contrariwise," continued Tweedledee, "if it was so, it might be, and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic!" -- Lewis Carroll "Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?" "That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat. -- Lewis Carrol If the weather is extremely bad, church attendance will be down. If the weather is extremely good, church attendance will be down. If the bulletin covers are in short supply, however, church attendance will exceed all expectations. -- Reverend Chichester "MacDonald has the gift on compressing the largest amount of words into the smallest amount of thoughts." -- Winston Churchill "If you go on with this nuclear arms race, all you are going to do is make the rubble bounce." -- Winston Churchill A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students. -- John Ciardi A lot of people I know believe in positive thinking, and so do I. I believe everything positively stinks. -- Lew Col Rotten wood can not be carved. -- Confucius "Analects" Book 5, Ch. 9 Business will be either better or worse. -- Calvin Coolidge "Calvin Coolidge was the greatest man who ever came out of Plymouth Corner, Vermont." -- Clarence Darrow "The difference between a misfortune and a calamity? If Gladstone fell into the Thames, it would be a misfortune. But if someone dragged him out again, it would be a calamity." -- Benjamin Disraeli There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics. -- Benjamin Disraeli Pereant, inquit, qui ante nos nostra dixerunt. [Confound those who have said our remarks before us.] -- Aelius Donatus The past always looks better than it was. It's only pleasant because it isn't here. -- Finley Peter Dunne (Mr. Dooley) There's only one way to have a happy marriage and as soon as I learn what it is I'll get married again. -- Clint Eastwood Man usually avoids attributing cleverness to somebody else -- unless it is an enemy. -- Albert Einstein "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." -- Albert Einstein "If I had only known, I would have been a locksmith." -- Albert Einstein As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. -- Albert Einstein Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged, from the beginning of the world, that such as are in the institution wish to get out, and such as are out wish to get in? -- Ralph Emerson If while you are in school, there is a shortage of qualified personnel in a particular field, then by the time you graduate with the necessary qualifications, that field's employment market is glutted. -- Marguerite Emmons Maturity is only a short break in adolescence. -- Jules Feiffer "Pascal is not a high-level language." -- Steven Feiner "If you're a real good kid, I'll give you a piggy-back ride on a buzz-saw." -- W. C. Fields Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people. -- W.C. Fields If at first you don't succeed, try again. Then give up, 'cos it's no use making a damned fool of yourself. -- W. C. Fields Anyone who hates dogs and kids can't be all bad. -- W. C. Fields Hey! Who took the cork off my lunch??! -- W. C. Fields Show me a man who laughs at defeat, and I'll show you a black chiropodist with a sense of humour. -- Norman Stanley Fletcher "So she went into the garden to cut a cabbage leaf to make an apple pie; and at the same time a great she-bear, coming up the street pops its head into the shop. "What! no soap?" So he died, and she very imprudently married the barber; and there were present the Picninnies, and the Grand Panjandrum himself, with the little round button at top, and they all fell to playing the game of catch as catch can, till the gunpowder ran out at the heels of their boots." -- Samuel Foote The Law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich, as well as the poor, to sleep under the bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread. -- Anatole France Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned. -- Milton Friedman Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under Communism, it's just the opposite. -- John Kenneth Galbraith If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error. -- John Kenneth Galbraith Where humor is concerned there are no standards -- no one can say what is good or bad, although you can be sure that everyone will. -- John Kenneth Galbraith Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality. -- Jules de Gaultier Death is life's way of telling you you've been fired. -- R. Geis Ten years of rejection slips is nature's way of telling you to stop writing. -- R. Geis "If you can count your money, you don't have a billion dollars." -- J. Paul Getty "Humor is a drug which it's the fashion to abuse." -- William Gilbert Santa Claus wears a Red Suit, He must be a communist. And a beard and long hair, Must be a pacifist. What's in that pipe that he's smoking? -- Arlo Guthrie "The warning message we sent the Russians was a calculated ambiguity that would be clearly understood." -- Alexander Haig Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. -- Salvor Hardin It is the business of the future to be dangerous. -- Hawkwind Some people are born mediocre, some people achieve mediocrity, and some people have mediocrity thrust upon them. -- Joseph Heller Religious ceremonies are unholy. -- Heraclitus An Englishman never enjoys himself, except for a noble purpose. -- A. P. Herbert Paranoids are people, too; they have their own problems. It's easy to criticize, but if everybody hated you, you'd be paranoid too. -- D. J. Hicks "I just need enough to tide me over until I need more." -- Bill Hoest Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life. -- Eric Hoffer About the time we think we can make ends meet, somebody moves the ends. -- Herbert Hoover Justice is incidental to law and order. -- J. Edgar Hoover If there is no God, who pops up the next Kleenex? -- Art Hoppe Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped. -- Elbert Hubbard Die: To stop sinning suddenly. -- Elbert Hubbard You should never wear your best trousers when you go out to fight for freedom and liberty. -- Henrick Ibson Advertisement: The most truthful part of a newspaper. -- Thomas Jefferson "Sherry [Thomas Sheridan] is dull, naturally dull; but it must have taken him a great deal of pains to become what we now see him. Such an excess of stupidity, sir, is not in Nature." -- Samuel Johnson Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you recognize a mistake when you make it again. -- F. P. Jones Alimony is a system by which, when two people make a mistake, one of them keeps paying for it. -- Peggy Joyce Tertullian was born in Carthage somewhere about 160 A.D. He was a pagan, and he abandoned himself to the lascivious life of his city until about his 35th year, when he became a Christian .... To him is ascribed the sublime confession: Credo quia absurdum est (I believe because it is absurd). This does not altogether accord with historical fact, for he merely said: "And the Son of God died, which is immediately credible because it is absurd. And buried he rose again, which is certain because it is impossible." Thanks to the acuteness of his mind, he saw through the poverty of philosophical and Gnostic knowledge, and contemptuously rejected it. -- C. G. Jung "Psychological Types" (Tertullian was one of the founders of the Catholic Church). You may have heard that a dean is to faculty as a hydrant is to a dog. -- Alfred Kahn Two can Live as Cheaply as One for Half as Long. -- Howard Kandel HE: Let's end it all, bequeathin' our brains to science. SHE: What?!? Science got enough trouble with their OWN brains. -- Walt Kelly We have met the enemy, and he is us. -- Walt Kelly Many years ago in a period commonly know as Next Friday Afternoon, there lived a King who was very Gloomy on Tuesday mornings because he was so Sad thinking about how Unhappy he had been on Monday and how completely Mournful he would be on Wednesday.... -- Walt Kelly "Now is the time for all good men to come to." -- Walt Kelly There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full. -- Henry Kissinger When you have shot and killed a man you have in some measure clarified your attitude toward him. You have given a definite answer to a definite problem. For better or worse you have acted decisively. In a way, the next move is up to him. -- R. A. Lafferty "She is descended from a long line that her mother listened to." -- Gypsy Rose Lee Sometimes I think life is passing me by. Just think -- when Mozart was my age, he'd been dead two years! -- Tom Lehrer The seven eyes of Ningauble the Wizard floated back to his hood as he reported to Fafhrd: "I have seen much, yet cannot explain all. The Gray Mouser is exactly twenty-five feet below the deepest cellar in the palace of Glipkerio Kistomerces. Even though twenty-four parts in twenty-five of him are dead, he is alive. "Now about Lankhmar. She's been invaded, her walls breached everywhere and desperate fighting is going on in the streets, by a fierce host which out-numbers Lankhmar's inhabitants by fifty to one -- and equipped with all modern weapons. Yet you can save the city." "How?" demanded Fafhrd. Ningauble shrugged. "You're a hero. You should know." -- Fritz Leiber "The Swords of Lankhmar" Not far from here, by a white sun, behind a green star, lived the Steelypips, illustrious, industrious, and they hadn't a care: no spats in their vats, no rules, no schools, no gloom, no evil influence of the moon, no trouble from matter or antimatter -- for they had a machine, a dream of a machine, with springs and gears and perfect in every respect. And they lived with it, and on it, and under it, and inside it, for it was all they had -- first they saved up all their atoms, then they put them all together, and if one didn't fit, why they chipped at it a bit, and everything was just fine... -- Stanislaw Lem When the Universe was not so out of whack as it is today, and all the stars were lined up in their proper places, you could easily count them from left to right, or top to bottom, and the larger and bluer ones were set apart, and the smaller yellowing types pushed off to the corners as bodies of a lower grade.... -- Stanislaw Lem Enzymes are things invented by biologists that explain things which otherwise require harder thinking. -- Jerome Lettvin But in our enthusiasm, we could not resist a radical overhaul of the system, in which all of its major weaknesses have been exposed, analyzed, and replaced with new weaknesses. -- Bruce Leverett "Register Allocation in Optimizing Compilers" In the Top 40, half the songs are secret messages to the teen world to drop out, turn on, and groove with the chemicals and light shows at discotheques. -- Art Linkletter The world's as ugly as sin, and almost as delightful. -- Frederick Locker-Lampson The correct way to punctuate a sentence that starts: "Of course it is none of my business but --" is to place a period after the word "but". Don't use excessive force in supplying such a moron with a period. Cutting his throat is only a momentary pleasure and is bound to get you talked about. -- Lazarus Long Yield to Temptation -- it may not pass your way again. -- Lazarus Long Waking someone unnecessarily should not be considered a capital crime -- at least not for a first offence. -- Lazarus Long Never try to outstubborn a cat. -- Lazarus Long Money is truthful; if a man speaks of his honour, make him pay cash. -- Lazarus Long Tax reform means "Don't tax you, don't tax me, tax that fellow behind the tree." -- Russell Long "Calvin Coolidge looks as if he had been weaned on a pickle." -- Alice Roosevelt Longworth Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy. -- Charlie McCarthy "I am not an Economist. I am an honest man!" -- Paul McCracken The cow is nothing but a machine with makes grass fit for us people to eat. -- John McNulty "It's Fabulous! We haven't seen anything like it in the last half an hour!" -- Macy's "The Lord gave us farmers two strong hands so we could grab as much as we could with both of them." -- Major Major's father Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms. -- Groucho Marx Military justice is to justice what military music is to music. -- Groucho Marx It says here that this can be operated by a five year old child. Will someone run and fetch me a five year old child? -- Groucho Marx "It is bad luck to be superstitious." -- Andrew W. Mathis Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. And my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it. -- W. Somerset Maugham The USA is so enormous, and so numerous are its schools, colleges and religious seminaries, many devoted to special religious beliefs ranging from the unorthodox to the dotty, that we can hardly wonder at its yielding a more bounteous harvest of gobbledegook than the rest of the world put together. -- Sir Peter Medawar You couldn't even prove the White House staff sane beyond a reasonable doubt. -- Ed Meese, on the Hinckley verdict Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by Jackasses. -- H. L. Mencken College football is a game which would be much more interesting if the faculty played instead of the students, and even more interesting if the trustees played. There would be a great increase in broken arms, legs, and necks, and simultaneously an appreciable diminution in the loss to humanity. -- H. L. Mencken Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody is looking. -- H. L. Mencken For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong. -- H. L. Mencken "Please try to limit the amount of `this room doesn't have any bazingas' until you are told that those rooms are `punched out.' Once punched out, we have a right to complain about atrocities, missing bazingas, and such." -- N. Meyrowitz Arithmetic is being able to count up to twenty without taking off your shoes. -- Mickey Mouse Chicken Soup: An ancient miracle drug containing equal parts of aureomycin, cocaine, interferon, and TLC. The only ailment chicken soup can't cure is neurotic dependence on one's mother. -- Arthur Naiman There are some goyisha names that just about guarantee that someone isn't Jewish. For example, you'll never meet a Jew named Johnson or Wright or Jones or Sinclair or Ricks or Stevenson or Reid or Larsen or Jenks. But some goyisha names just about guarantee that every other person you meet with that name will be Jewish. Why is this? Who knows? Learned rabbis have pondered this question for centuries and have failed to come up with an answer, and you think _ can find one? Get serious. You don't even understand why it's forbidden to eat crab -- fresh cold crab with mayonnaise -- or lobster -- soft tender morsels of lobster dipped in melted butter. You don't even understand a simple thing like that, and yet you hope to discover why there are more Jews named Miller than Katz? Fat Chance. -- Arthur Naiman An old Jewish man reads about Einstein's theory of relativity in the newspaper and asks his scientist grandson to explain it to him. "Well, zayda, it's sort of like this. Einstein says that if you're having your teeth drilled without Novocain, a minute seems like an hour. But if you're sitting with a beautiful woman on your lap, an hour seems like a minute." The old man considers this profound bit of thinking for a moment and says, "And from this he makes a living?" -- Arthur Naiman Gay shlafen: Yiddish for "go to sleep". Now doesn't "gay shlafen" have a softer, more soothing sound than the harsh, staccato "go to sleep"? Listen to the difference: "Go to sleep, you little wretch!" ... "Gay shlafen, darling." Obvious, isn't it? Clearly the best thing you can do for you children is to start speaking Yiddish right now and never speak another word of English as long as you live. This will, of course, entail teaching Yiddish to all your friends, business associates, the people at the supermarket, and so on, but that's just the point. It has to start with committed individuals and then grow.... Some minor adjustments will have to be made, of course: those signs written in what look like Yiddish letters won't be funny when everything is written in Yiddish. And we'll have to start driving on the left side of the road so we won't be reading the street signs backwards. But is that too high a price to pay for world peace? I think not, my friend, I think not. -- Arthur Naiman "God gives burdens; also shoulders" Jimmy Carter cited this Jewish saying in his concession speech at the end of the 1980 election. At least he said it was a Jewish saying; I can't find it anywhere. I'm sure he's telling the truth though; why would he lie about a thing like that? -- Arthur Naiman Goy: ... The distinction between Jewish and goyish can be quite subtle, as the following quote from Lenny Bruce illustrates: "I'm Jewish. Count Basie's Jewish. Ray Charles is Jewish. Eddie Cantor's goyish. The B'nai Brith is goyish. The Hadassah is Jewish. Marine Corps -- heavy goyish, dangerous. "Kool-Aid is goyish. All Drake's Cakes are goyish. Pumpernickel is Jewish and, as you know, white bread is very goyish. Instant potatoes -- goyish. Black cherry soda's very Jewish. Macaroons are _ y Jewish. Fruit salad is Jewish. Lime Jell-O is goyish. Lime soda is _ y goyish. Trailer parks are so goyish that Jews won't go near them..." -- Arthur Naiman One of the oldest problems puzzled over in the Talmud is: "Why did God create goyim?" The generally accepted answer is "_ y has to buy retail." -- Arthur Naiman Half-done: This is the best way to eat a kosher dill -- when it's still crunchy, light green, yet full of garlic flavor. The difference between this and the typical soggy dark green cucumber corpse is like the the difference between life and death. You may find it difficult to find a good half-done kosher dill there in Seattle, so what you should do is take a cab out to the airport, fly to New York, take the JFK Express to Jay Street-Borough Hall, transfer to an uptown F, get off at East Broadway, walk north on Essex (along the park), make your first left onto Hester Street, walk about fifteen steps, turn ninety degrees left, and stop. Say to the man, "Let me have a nice half-done." Worth the trouble, wasn't it? -- Arthur Naiman A man goes to a tailor to try on a new custom-made suit. The first thing he notices is that the arms are too long. "No problem," says the tailor. "Just bend them at the elbow and hold them out in front of you. See, now it's fine." "But the collar is up around my ears!" "It's nothing. Just hunch your back up a little...no, a little more...that's it." "But I'm stepping on my cuffs!" the man cries in desperation. "Nu, bend you knees a little to take up the slack. There you go. Look in the mirror -- the suit fits perfectly." So, twisted like a pretzel, the man lurches out onto the street. Reba and Florence see him go by. "Oh, look," says Reba, "that poor man!" "Yes," says Florence, "but what a beautiful suit." -- Arthur Naiman Murray and Esther, a middle-aged Jewish couple, are touring Chile. Murray just got a new camera and is constantly snapping pictures. One day, without knowing it, he photographs a top-secret military installation. In an instant, armed troops surround Murray and Esther and hustle them off to prison. They can't prove who they are because they've left their passports in their hotel room. For three weeks they're tortured day and night to get them to name their contacts in the liberation movement.. Finally they're hauled in front of a military court, charged with espionage, and sentenced to death. The next morning they're lined up in front of the wall where they'll be shot. The sergeant in charge of the firing squad asks them if they have any lasts requests. Esther wants to know if she can call her daughter in Chicago. The sergeant says he's sorry, that's not possible, and turns to Murray. "This is crazy!" Murray shouts. "We're not spies!" And he spits in the sergeants face. "Murray!" Esther cries. "Please! Don't make trouble." -- Arthur Naiman Shamus: A shamus is a guy who takes care of handyman tasks around the temple, and makes sure everything is in working order. A shamus is at the bottom of the pecking order of synagog functionaries, and there's a joke about that: A rabbi, to show his humility before God, cries out in the middle of a service, "Oh, Lord, I am nobody!" The cantor, not to be bested, also cries out, "Oh, Lord, I am nobody!" The shamus, deeply moved, follows suit and cries, "Oh, Lord, I am nobody!" The rabbi turns to the cantor and says, "Look who thinks he's nobody!" -- Arthur Naiman People who have what they want are very fond of telling people who haven't what they want that they don't want it. -- Ogden Nash Too clever is dumb. -- Ogden Nash "I drink to make other people interesting." -- George Jean Nathan Crime does not pay...as well as politics. -- A. E. Newman If you think the United States has stood still, who built the largest shopping center in the world? -- Richard Nixon America may be unique in being a country which has leapt from barbarism to decadence without touching civilization. -- John O'Hara He who attacks the fundamentals of the American broadcasting industry attacks democracy itself. -- William S. Paley, chairman of CBS ( Conservative Bavarian Seers ) "This isn't right. This isn't even wrong." -- Wolfgang Pauli on a paper submitted by a physicist colleague In the long run, every program becomes rococo, and then rubble. -- Alan Perlis You can measure a programmer's perspective by noting his attitude on the continuing viability of Fortran. -- Alan Perlis A Lisp programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of nothing. -- Alan Perlis The computing field is always in need of new cliches. -- Alan Perlis It is against the grain of modern education to teach children to program. What fun is there in making plans, acquiring discipline in organizing thoughts, devoting attention to detail, and learning to be self-critical? -- Alan Perlis We are confronted with insurmountable opportunities. -- Pogo If someone had told me I would be Pope one day, I would have studied harder. -- Pope John Paul I A city is a large community where people are lonesome together. -- Herbert Prochnow A bachelor is a selfish, undeserving guy who has cheated some woman out of a divorce. -- Don Quinn No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. -- Eleanor Roosevelt The first riddle I ever heard, one familiar to almost every Jewish child, was propounded to me by my father: "What is it that hangs on the wall, is green, wet -- and whistles?" I knit my brow and thought and thought, and in final perplexity gave up. "A herring," said my father. "A herring," I echoed. "A herring doesn't hang on the wall!" "So hang it there." "But a herring isn't green!" I protested. "Paint it." "But a herring isn't wet." "If it's just painted it's still wet." "But -- ", I sputtered, summoning all my outrage, "-- a herring doesn't whistle!!" "Right, " smiled my father. "I just put that in to make it hard." -- Leo Rosten Good advice is something a man gives when he is too old to set a bad example. -- La Rouchefoucauld Nothing is true. Everything is permissible. -- Hasan i Sabah, 1090 A.D. You don't have to think too hard when you talk to teachers. -- J. D. Salinger If A = B and B = C, then A = C, except where void or prohibited by law. -- Roy Santoro Good-bye. I am leaving because I am bored. -- George Saunders' dying words It is generally agreed that "Hello" is an appropriate greeting because if you entered a room and said "Goodbye," it could confuse a lot of people. -- Dolph Sharp Receiving a million dollars tax free will make you feel better than being flat broke and having a stomach ache. -- Dolph Sharp A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education. -- George Bernard Shaw When two people are under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions, they are required to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal, and exhausting condition continuously until death do them part. -- George Bernard Shaw NAPOLEON: What shall we do with this soldier, Guiseppe? Everything he says is wrong. GUISEPPE: Make him a general, Excellency, and then everything he says will be right. -- George Bernard Shaw There is no satisfaction in hanging a man who does not object to it. -- George Bernard Shaw Democracy is a form of government that substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few. -- George Bernard Shaw Immortality -- a fate worse than death. -- Edgar A. Shoaff The individual choice of garnishment of a burger can be an important point to the consumer in this day when individualism is an increasingly important thing to people. -- Donald N. Smith, president of Burger King The human animal differs from the lesser primates in his passion for lists of "Ten Best". -- H. Allen Smith Never ask a man whether he comes from Yorkshire. If he does, he will already have told you. If he doesn't, there's no point in humiliating him. -- Sidney Smith Yesterday I was a dog. Today I'm a dog. Tomorrow I'll probably still be a dog. Sigh! There's so little hope for advancement. -- Snoopy Democracy is a form of government in which it is permitted to wonder aloud what the country could do under first-class management. -- Senator Soaper There are really not many jobs that actually require a penis or a vagina, and all other occupations should be open to everyone. -- Gloria Steinem A sine curve goes off to infinity or at least the end of the blackboard. -- Prof. Steiner Eggheads unite! You have nothing to lose but your yolks. -- Adlai Stevenson A woman's place is in the wrong. -- James Thurber "Why isn't there a special name for the tops of your feet?" -- Lily Tomlin Sometimes I worry about being a success in a mediocre world. -- Lily Tomlin Old age is the most unexpected of things that can happen to a man. -- Trotsky If you cannot convince them, confuse them. -- Harry S Truman THE STORY OF CREATION or THE MYTH OF URK In the beginning there was data. The data was without form and null, and darkness was upon the face of the console; and the Spirit of IBM was moving over the face of the market. And DEC said, "Let there be registers"; and there were registers. And DEC saw that they carried; and DEC separated the data from the instructions. DEC called the data Stack, and the instructions they called Code. And there was evening and there was morning, one interrupt... -- Rico Tudor If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man. -- Mark Twain "When in doubt, tell the truth." -- Mark Twain "When in doubt, book 'em." -- Steve McGarret, Hawaii Five-O Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved. -- Mark Twain Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society. -- Mark Twain There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact. -- Mark Twain A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining and wants it back the minute it begins to rain. -- Mark Twain Man is the only animal that blushes -- or needs to. -- Mark Twain "He is now rising from affluence to poverty." -- Mark Twain A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read. -- Mark Twain Cauliflower is nothing but Cabbage with a College Education. -- Mark Twain But soft you, the fair Ophelia: Ope not thy ponderous and marble jaws, But get thee to a nunnery -- go! -- Mark Twain "...an experienced, industrious, ambitious, and often quite picturesque liar." -- Mark Twain I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn't know. -- Mark Twain "...all the modern inconveniences..." -- Mark Twain Whenever the literary German dives into a sentence, that is the last you are going to see of him until he emerges on the other side of his Atlantic with his verb in his mouth. -- Mark Twain Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform. -- Mark Twain "Wagner's music is better than it sounds." -- Mark Twain God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board. -- Mark Twain It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail. -- Gore Vidal Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly. -- Voltaire It is amusing that a virtue is made of the vice of chastity; and it's a pretty odd sort of chastity at that, which leads men straight into the sin of Onan, and girls to the waning of their color. -- Voltaire The superfluous is very necessary. -- Voltaire It is one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that virginity could be a virtue. -- Voltaire Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops. -- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. I can't complain, but sometimes I still do. -- Joe Walsh Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before. -- Mae West. Too much of a good thing is WONDERFUL. -- Mae West "It's not Camelot, but it's not Cleveland, either." -- Kevin White, mayor of Boston There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes. -- Dr. Who Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong. -- Oscar Wilde The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. -- Oscar Wilde Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason. -- Oscar Wilde Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months. -- Oscar Wilde "Why was I born with such contemporaries?" -- Oscar Wilde "There are two ways of disliking poetry; one way is to dislike it, the other is to read Pope." -- Oscar Wilde The typewriting machine, when played with expression, is no more annoying than the piano when played by a sister or near relation. -- Oscar Wilde There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about. -- Oscar Wilde If you think nobody cares if you're alive, try missing a couple of car payments. -- Earl Wilson Nothing recedes like success. -- Walter Winchell TV is chewing gum for the eyes. -- Frank Lloyd Wright Nothing is illegal if one hundred businessmen decide to do it. -- Andrew Young Most people wouldn't know music if it came up and bit them on the ass. -- Frank Zappa Duct tape is like the force. It has a light side, and a dark side, and it holds the universe together.... -- Carl Zwanzig Major Premise: Sixty men can do a piece of work sixty times as quickly as one man. Minor Premise: One man can dig a posthole in sixty seconds; therefore -- Conclusion: Sixty men can dig a posthole in one second. Magnet, n.: Something acted upon by magnetism. Magnetism, n.: Something acting upon a magnet. The two definitions immediately foregoing are condensed from the works of one thousand eminent scientists, who have illuminated the subject with a great white light, to the inexpressible advancement of human knowledge. Three great scientific theories of the structure of the universe are the molecular, the corpuscular and the atomic. A fourth affirms, with Haeckel, the condensation or precipitation of matter from ether -- whose existence is proved by the condensation or precipitation....A fifth theory is held by idiots, but it is doubtful if they know any more about the matter than the others. "When you are in it up to your ears, keep your mouth shut." Any small object that is accidentally dropped will hide under a larger object. Pro is to con as progress is to Congress. The probability of someone watching you is proportional to the stupidity of your action. Money is the root of all evil, and man needs roots. It is said that the lonely eagle flies to the mountain peaks while the lowly ant crawls the ground, but cannot the soul of the ant soar as high as the eagle? If you wants to get elected president, you'se got to think up some memoraboble homily so's school kids can be pestered into memorizin' it, even if they don't know what it means. If I kiss you, that is a psychological interaction. On the other hand, if I hit you over the head with a brick, that is also a psychological interaction. The difference is that one is friendly and the other is not so friendly. The crucial point is if you can tell which is which. A penny saved is ridiculous. The right half of the brain controls the left half of the body. This means that only left handed people are in their right mind. "You must realize that the computer has it in for you. The irrefutable proof of this is that the computer always does what you tell it to do." If a President doesn't do it to his wife, he'll do it to his country. It is better to kiss an avocado than to get in a fight with an aardvark. Joe's sister puts spaghetti in her shoes! Bank error in your favor. Collect $200. Remember that whatever misfortune may be your lot, it could only be worse in Cleveland. For a good time, call 642-9483. AAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaccccccccckkkkkk!!!!!!!!! You brute! Knock before entering a ladies room! A gleekzorp without a tornpee is like a quop without a fertsneet (sort of). To be is to do. -- I. Kant To do is to be. -- A. Sartre Yabba-Dabba-Doo! -- F. Flintstone God is Dead. -- Nietzsche Nietzsche is Dead. -- God Nietzsche is God. -- Dead Jesus Saves, Moses Invests, But only Buddha pays Dividends. Acid absorbs 47 times its weight in excess Reality. Census Taker to Housewife: Did you ever have the measles, and, if so, how many? Help! I'm trapped in a PDP 11/70! !07/11 PDP a ni deppart m'I !pleH You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair. May a Misguided Platypus lay its Eggs in your Jockey Shorts. Sex is not the answer. Sex is the question. "Yes" is the answer. If anything can go wrong, it will. This fortune cookie program out of order. For those in desperate need, please use the program "randchar". This program generates random characters, and, given enough time, will undoubtedly come up with something profound. It will, however, take it no time at all to be more profound than THIS program has ever been. This fortune intentionally not included. Everyone knows that dragons don't exist. But while this simplistic formulation may satisfy the layman, it does not suffice for the scientific mind. The School of Higher Neantical Nillity is in fact wholly unconcerned with what _ s exist. Indeed, the banality of existence has been so amply demonstrated, there is no need for us to discuss it any further here. The brilliant Cerebron, attacking the problem analytically, discovered three distinct kinds of dragon: the mythical, the chimerical, and the purely hypothetical. They were all, one might say, nonexistent, but each nonexisted in an entirely different way...... A bird in the hand is worth what it will bring. I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy. When Marriage is Outlawed, Only Outlaws will have Inlaws. Look out! Behind you! Nothing is true. Everything is permissible. It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious. Dimensions will always be expressed in the least usable term. Velocity, for example, will be expressed in furlongs per fortnight. ROMEO: Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much. MERCUTIO: No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church- door; but 'tis enough, 'twill serve. "I cannot read the fiery letters," said Frodo in a quavering voice. "No," Said Gandalf, "but I can. The letters are Elvish, of course, of an ancient mode, but the language is that of Mordor, which I will not utter here. They are lines of a verse long known in Elven-lore: "This Ring, no other, is made by the elves, Who'd pawn their own mother to grab it themselves. Ruler of creeper, mortal, and scallop, This is a sleeper that packs quite a wallop. The Power almighty rests in this Lone Ring. The Power, alrighty, for doing your Own Thing. If broken or busted, it cannot be remade. If found, send to Sorhed (with postage prepaid)." Families, when a child is born Want it to be intelligent. I, through intelligence, Having wrecked my whole life, Only hope the baby will prove Ignorant and stupid. Then he will crown a tranquil life By becoming a Cabinet Minister -- Su Tung-p'o Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing. There is a great discovery still to be made in Literature: that of paying literary men by the quantity they do NOT write. Never count your chickens before they rip your lips off. "Sometimes I simply feel that the whole world is a cigarette and I'm the only ashtray." Keep your Eye on the Ball, Your Shoulder to the Wheel, Your Nose to the Grindstone, Your Feet on the Ground, Your Head on your Shoulders. Now....try to get something DONE! The Schwine-Kitzenger Institute study of 47 men over the age of 100 showed that all had these things in common: 1) They all had moderate appetites. 2) They all came from middle class homes. 3) All but two of them were dead. Fats Loves Madelyn. We really don't have any enemies. It's just that some of our best friends are trying to kill us. "Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing." Blessed are they who Go Around in Circles, for they Shall be Known as Wheels. Today is a good day to bribe a high-ranking public official. You will be Told about it Tomorrow. Go Home and Prepare Thyself. God made the world in six days, and was arrested on the seventh. God made the world in six days, and spent the seventh debugging. While your friend holds you affectionately by both your hands you are safe, for you can watch both of his. Did you know that clones never use mirrors? Please ignore previous fortune. Are we not men? Please take note: Do not read this fortune under penalty of law. Violators will be prosecuted. (Penal Code sec. 2.3.2 (II.a.)) The goal of science is to build better mousetraps. The goal of nature is to build better mice. Genetics explains why you look like your father, and if you don't, why you should. Children seldom misquote you. In fact, they usually repeat word for word what you shouldn't have said. If bankers can count, how come they have eight windows and only four tellers? Who needs companionship when you can sit alone in your room and drink? Friends, Romans, Hipsters, Let me clue you in; I come to put down Caesar, not to groove him. The square kicks some cats are on stay with them; The hip bits, like, go down under; so let it lay with Caesar. The cool Brutus Gave you the message: Caesar had big eyes; If that's the sound, someone's copping a plea, And, like, old Caesar really set them straight. Here, copacetic with Brutus and the studs, -- for Brutus is a real cool cat; So are they all, all cool cats, -- Come I to make this gig at Caesar's laying down. Did you know.... That no-one ever reads these things? f u cn rd ths, itn tyg h myxbl cd. Every successful person has had failures but repeated failure is no guarantee of eventual success. "Now the Lord God planted a garden East of Whittier in a place called Yorba Linda, and out of the ground he made to grow orange trees that were good for food and the fruits thereof he labeled SUNKIST..." ... But among the children of the Great Society there were those whose skins were black. And lo! Their portion was niggardly, and of the fatted calf they were sucking hind teat... Now it came to pass that a prophet rose up amongst them, and they called him King. And he went unto Pharaoh and said, "Let my people go to the front of the bus." But Pharaoh answered: "In the fullness of time and with all deliberate speed shall this thing come to pass. When ye shall prove yourselves worthy, shall ye have your just portion -- yea, verily, like unto a snowball in Hell." NOBODY EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION $3,000,000 It is much easier to suggest solutions when you know nothing about the problem. 77. HO HUM -- The Redundant ------- (7) This hexagram refers to a situation of extreme --- --- (8) boredom. Your programs always bomb off. Your wife ------- (7) smells bad. Your children have hives. You are working ---O--- (6) on an accounting system, when you want to develop ---X--- (9) the GREAT AMERICAN COMPILER. You give up hot dates --- --- (8) to nurse sick computers. What you need now is sex. Nine in the second place means: The yellow bird approaches the malt shop. Misfortune. Six in the third place means: In former times men built altars to honor the Internal Revenue Service. Great Dragons! Are you in trouble! Niklaus Wirth has lamented that, whereas Europeans pronounce his name correctly (Ni-klows Virt), Americans invariably mangle it into (Nick-les Worth). Which is to say that Europeans call him by name, but Americans call him by value. The number of licorice gumballs you get out of a gumball machine increases in direct proportion to how much you hate licorice. If you push the "extra ice" button on the soft drink vending machine, you won't get any ice. If you push the "no ice" button, you'll get ice, but no cup. Computers are not intelligent. They only think they are. Let He who taketh the Plunge Remember to return it by Tuesday. Those who can, do. Those who can't, simulate. Those who can't write, write manuals. Surprise! You are the lucky winner of random I.R.S. Audit! Just type in your name and social security number. Please remember that leaving the room is punishable under law: Name You might have mail. Never put off till tomorrow what you can avoid all together. Mistakes are often the stepping stones to utter failure. A truly wise man never plays leapfrog with a unicorn. Stop searching. Happiness is right next to you. Stop searching. Happiness is right next to you. Now, if they'd only take a bath... "He was so narrow minded he could see through a keyhole with both eyes..." It seems like the less a statesman amounts to, the more he loves the flag. Why did the Lord give us so much quickness of movement unless it was to avoid responsibility with? SHIFT TO THE LEFT! SHIFT TO THE RIGHT! POP UP, PUSH DOWN, BYTE, BYTE, BYTE! The average woman would rather have beauty than brains, because the average man can see better than he can think. "If God lived on Earth, people would knock out all His windows." -- Yiddish saying Waiter: "Tea or coffee, gentlemen?" 1st customer: "I'll have tea." 2nd customer: "Me, too -- and be sure the glass is clean!" (Waiter exits, returns) Waiter: "Two teas. Which one asked for the clean glass?" On his first day as a bus driver, Maxey Eckstein handed in receipts of $65. The next day his take was $67. The third day's income was $62. But on the fourth day, Eckstein emptied no less than $283 on the desk before the cashier. "Eckstein!" exclaimed the cashier. "This is fantastic. That route never brought in money like this! What happened?" "Well, after three days on that cockamany route, I figured business would never improve, so I drove over to Fourteenth Street and worked there. I tell you, that street is a gold mine!" The men sat sipping their tea in silence. After a while the klutz said, "Life is like a bowl of sour cream." "Like a bowl of sour cream?" asked the other. "Why?" "How should I know? What am I, a philosopher?" This will be a memorable month -- no matter how hard you try to forget it. Afternoon very favorable for romance. Try a single person for a change. Beware of low-flying butterflies. Green light in A.M. for new projects. Red light in P.M. for traffic tickets. Artistic ventures highlighted. Rob a museum. Keep emotionally active. Cater to your favorite neurosis. Your analyst has you mixed up with another patient. Don't believe a thing he tells you. Do not drink coffee in early A.M. It will keep you awake until noon. You may be recognized soon. Hide. You have the capacity to learn from mistakes. You'll learn a lot today. Good day for overcoming obstacles. Try a steeplechase. Day of inquiry. You will be subpoenaed. You could get a new lease on life -- if only you didn't need the first and last month in advance. Surprise your boss. Get to work on time. You're being followed. Cut out the hanky-panky for a few days. Don't kiss an elephant on the lips today. Future looks spotty. You will spill soup in late evening. Don't feed the bats tonight. Stay away from flying saucers today. You've been leading a dog's life. Stay off the furniture. Do not sleep in a eucalyptus tree tonight. Help a swallow land at Capistrano. Succumb to natural tendencies. Be hateful and boring. Half Moon tonight. (At least it's better than no Moon at all.) Another good night not to sleep in a eucalyptus tree. Message will arrive in the mail. Destroy, before the FBI sees it. Do what comes naturally now. Seethe and fume and throw a tantrum. Perfect day for scrubbing the floor and other exciting things. Be free and open and breezy! Enjoy! Things won't get any better so get used to it. Truth will be out this morning. (Which may really mess things up.) Travel important today; Internal Revenue men arrive tomorrow. Good day for a change of scene. Repaper the bedroom wall. You can create your own opportunities this week. Blackmail a senior executive. Fine day to throw a party. Throw him as far as you can. Good news. Ten weeks from Friday will be a pretty good day. Think of your family tonight. Try to crawl home after the computer crashes. Show respect for age. Drink good Scotch for a change. Give thought to your reputation. Consider changing name and moving to a new town. If you think last Tuesday was a drag, wait till you see what happens tomorrow! Excellent day to have a rotten day. You worry too much about your job. Stop it. You are not paid enough to worry. Don't tell any big lies today. Small ones can be just as effective. Others will look to you for stability, so hide when you bite your nails. Tonight's the night: Sleep in a eucalyptus trees. Our country has plenty of good five-cent cigars, but the trouble is they charge fifteen cents for them. Question: Man Invented Alcohol, God Invented Grass. Who do you trust? The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get up in the morning, and does not stop until you get to school. You cannot kill time without injuring eternity. If at first you don't succeed, give up, no use being a damn fool. According to the latest official figures, 43% of all statistics are totally worthless. Wasting time is an important part of living. Due to a shortage of devoted followers, the production of great leaders has been discontinued. I'm prepared for all emergencies but totally unprepared for everyday life. Excellent day for drinking heavily. Spike office water cooler. Excellent time to become a missing person. A day for firm decisions!!!!! Or is it? Fine day to work off excess energy. Steal something heavy. Spend extra time on hobby. Get plenty of rolling papers. Things will be bright in P.M. A cop will shine a light in your face. Good day to avoid cops. Crawl to school. Screw up your courage! You've screwed up everything else. Don't believe everything you hear or anything you say. Do something unusual today. Pay a bill. You will be a winner today. Pick a fight with a four-year-old. Troubled day for virgins over 16 who are beautiful and wealthy and live in eucalyptus trees. Surprise due today. Also the rent. Avoid reality at all costs. Good day to let down old friends who need help. Next Friday will not be your lucky day. As a matter of fact, you don't have a lucky day this year. You are wise, witty, and wonderful, but you spend too much time reading this sort of trash. What the hell, go ahead and put all your eggs in one basket. Don't go surfing in South Dakota for a while. Celebrate Hannibal Day this year. Take an elephant to lunch. Stay away from hurricanes for a while. A chubby man with a white beard and a red suit will approach you soon. Avoid him. He's a Commie. Caution: breathing may be hazardous to your health. Remember, even if you win the rat race -- you're still a rat. Nihilism should commence with oneself. Vote anarchist. I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous. Tomorrow will be cancelled due to lack of interest. Old programmers never die. They just branch to a new address. Old soldiers never die. Young ones do. Old professors never die, they only lose their faculties. Old fishermen never die, they only smell like it. UFO's are for real: the Air Force doesn't exist. In case of atomic attack, the federal ruling against prayer in schools will be temporarily cancelled. Drive defensively, buy a tank. Alexander Graham Bell is alive and well in New York, and still waiting for a dial tone. The meek shall inherit the earth -- they are too weak to refuse. Condense soup, not books! The world is coming to an end! Repent and return those library books! Philadelphia is not dull -- it just seems so because it is next to exciting Camden, New Jersey. Never be led astray onto the path of virtue. Give your child mental blocks for Christmas. Mickey Mouse wears a Spiro Agnew watch. Minnie Mouse is a slow maze learner. Don't hate yourself in the morning -- sleep till noon. Keep America beautiful. Swallow your beer cans. What this country needs is a good five cent ANYTHING! Hire the morally handicapped. I can resist anything but temptation. Modern man is the missing link between apes and human beings. Don't knock President Fillmore. He kept us out of Vietnam. Earn cash in your spare time -- blackmail your friends. Keep grandma off the streets -- legalize bingo. Reporter (to Mahatma Gandhi): Mr Gandhi, what do you think of Western Civilization? Gandhi: I think it would be a good idea. Xerox never comes up with anything original. Acid -- better living through chemistry. "All flesh is grass" -- Isiah Smoke a friend today. "You'll never be the man your mother was!" George Orwell was an optimist. Chicken Little was right. "Qvid me anxivs svm?" Gravity is a myth, the Earth sucks. Nostalgia isn't what it used to be. Dallas still lives. God _ t be dead. Don't cook tonight -- starve a rat today! They're only trying to make me LOOK paranoid! Hail to the sun god He sure is a fun god Ra! Ra! Ra! Brain fried -- Core dumped. Remember, UNIX spelled backwards is XINU. Time is nature's way of making sure that everything doesn't happen at once. If God had wanted you to go around nude, He would have given you bigger hands. What this country needs is a good five-cent nickel. Losing your drivers' license is just God's way of saying "BOOGA, BOOGA!" A closed mouth gathers no foot. A diva who specializes in risqu' e arias is an off-coloratura soprano... Q: How many IBM cpu's does it take to do a logical right shift? A: 33. 1 to hold the bits and 32 to push the register. "Who cares if it doesn't do anything? It was made with our new Triple-Iso-Bifurcated-Krypton-Gate-MOS process..." "There are three possibilities: Pioneer's solar panel has turned away from the sun; there's a large meteor blocking transmission; or someone loaded Star Trek 3.2 into our video processor." If time heals all wounds, how come the belly button stays the same? Ban the bomb. Save the world for conventional warfare. Death is nature's way of telling you to slow down. Down with categorical imperative! Life is a yo-yo, and mankind ties knots in the string. Things are more like they used to be than they are new. Hummingbirds never remember the words to songs. Lysistrata had a good idea. Reality is an obstacle to hallucination. Paul Revere was a tattle-tale. Familiarity breeds attempt. Certain old men prefer to rise at dawn, taking a cold bath and a long walk with an empty stomach and otherwise mortifying the flesh. They then point with pride to these practices as the cause of their sturdy health and ripe years; the truth being that they are hearty and old, not because of their habits, but in spite of them. The reason we find only robust persons doing this thing is that it has killed all the others who have tried it. God did not create the world in 7 days; he screwed around for 6 days and then pulled an all-nighter. God is a polytheist. God isn't dead, he just couldn't find a parking place. If God is perfect, why did He create discontinuous functions? "And what will you do when you grow up to be as big as me?" asked the father of his little son. "Diet." "Might as well be frank, monsieur. It would take a miracle to get you out of Casablanca and the Germans have outlawed miracles." "That must be wonderful! I don't understand it at all." The chicken that clucks the loudest is the one most likely to show up at the steam fitters picnic. The earth is like a tiny grain of sand, only much, much heavier. "We don't care. We don't have to. We're the Phone Company." "Here at the Phone Company, we serve all kinds of people; from Presidents and Kings to the scum of the earth..." God is not dead! He's alive and autographing bibles at Cody's. Albert Einstein, when asked to describe radio, replied: You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat. If the odds are a million to one against something occurring, chances are 50-50 it will. "An American is a man with two arms and four wheels." -- A Chinese child Children are natural mimics who act like their parents despite every effort to teach them good manners. "The climate of Bombay is such that its inhabitants have to live elsewhere." If God had meant for us to be naked, we would have been born that way. Hindsight is an exact science. If you don't care where you are, then you ain't lost. It is easier to get forgiveness than permission. There is no time like the present for postponing what you ought to be doing. Important letters which contain no errors will develop errors in the mail. Corresponding errors will show up in the duplicate while the Boss is reading it. Vital papers will demonstrate their vitality by spontaneously moving from where you left them to where you can't find them. When you do not know what you are doing, do it neatly. When the government bureau's remedies do not match your problem, you modify the problem, not the remedy. Just because your doctor has a name for your condition doesn't mean he knows what it is. Only adults have difficulty with childproof caps. Anything labeled "NEW" and/or "IMPROVED" isn't. The label means the price went up. The label "ALL NEW", "COMPLETELY NEW", or "GREAT NEW" means the price went way up. How long a minute is depends on which side of the bathroom door you're on. Don't worry over what other people are thinking about you. They're too busy worrying over what you are thinking about them. "The meat is rotten, but the booze is holding out." Computer Translation of "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak" One good reason why computers can do more work than people is that they never have to stop and answer the phone. At the source of every error which is blamed on the computer you will find at least two human errors, including the error of blaming it on the computer. If you put garbage in a computer nothing comes out but garbage. But this garbage, having passed through a very expensive machine, is somehow ennobled and none dare criticize it. The IQ of the group is the lowest IQ of a member of the group divided by the number of people in the group. Love at first sight is one of the greatest labor-saving devices the world has ever seen. "The way to make a small fortune in the commodities market is to start with a large fortune." BLISS is ignorance. Hi! How are things going? (just fine, thank you...) Great! Say, could I bother you for a question? (you just asked one...) Well, how about one more? (one more than the first one?) Yes. (you already asked that...) [at this point, Alphonso gets smart... May I ask two questions, sir? (no.) May I ask ONE then? (nope...) Then may I ask, sir, how I may ask you a question? (yes, you may.) Sir, how may I ask you a question? (you must ask for retroactive question asking privileges for the number of questions you have asked, then ask for that number plus two (one for the current question, and one for the next one)) Sir, may I ask nine questions? (go right ahead...) MOCK APPLE PIE (No Apples Needed) Pastry to two crust 9-inch pie 36 RITZ Crackers 2 cups water 2 cups sugar 2 teaspoons cream of tartar 2 tablespoons lemon juice Grated rind of one lemon Butter or margarine Cinnamon Roll out bottom crust of pastry and fit into 9-inch pie plate. Break RITZ Crackers coarsely into pastry-lined plate. Combine water, sugar and cream of tartar in saucepan, boil gently for 15 minutes. Add lemon juice and rind. Cool. Pour this syrup over Crackers, dot generously with butter or margarine and sprinkle with cinnamon. Cover with top crust. Trim and flute edges together. Cut slits in top crust to let steam escape. Bake in a hot oven (425 F) 30 to 35 minutes, until crust is crisp and golden. Serve warm. Cut into 6 to 8 slices. -- Found lurking on a Ritz Crackers box God is a comic playing to an audience that's afraid to laugh. The Briggs - Chase Law of Program Development: To determine how long it will take to write and debug a program, take your best estimate, multiply that by two, add one, and convert to the next higher units. Predestination was doomed from the start. Xerox does it again and again and again and ... The Supreme Court does it with all deliberate speed. On a clear disk you can seek forever. Whenever I feel like exercise, I lie down until the feeling passes. When God endowed human beings with brains, He did not intend to guarantee them. What makes us so bitter against people who outwit us is that they think themselves cleverer than we are. Massachusetts has the best politicians money can buy. Think twice before speaking, but don't say "think think click click". There's one fool at least in every married couple. There are more old drunkards than old doctors. "The first thing I do in the morning is brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue." People who have no faults are terrible; there is no way of taking advantage of them. Ours is a world where people don't know what they want and are willing to go through hell to get it. Never call a man a fool; borrow from him. Misery loves company, but company does not reciprocate. Love is sentimental measles. Life is like an onion: you peel off layer after layer, then you find there is nothing in it. If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; but if you really make them think they'll hate you. I never fail to convince an audience that the best thing they could do was to go away. If we do not change our direction we are likely to end up where we are headed. "All my friends and I are crazy. That's the only thing that keeps us sane." If it wasn't for Venetian blinds, it would be curtains for the whole world. Famous last words: Don't worry, I can handle it. You and what army? If you were as smart as you think you are, you wouldn't be a cop. Our OS who art in CPU, UNIX be thy name. Thy programs run, thy syscalls done, in kernel as it is in user! Nothing is faster than the speed of light... To prove this to yourself, try opening the refrigerator door before the light comes on. AQUARIUS (Jan 20 - Feb 18) You have an inventive mind and are inclined to be progressive. You lie a great deal. On the other hand, you are inclined to be careless and impractical, causing you to make the same mistakes over and over again. People think you are stupid. PISCES (Feb. 19 - Mar. 20) You have a vivid imagination and often think you are being followed by the CIA or FBI. You have minor influence over your associates and people resent your flaunting of your power. You lack confidence and you are generally a coward. Pisces people do terrible things to small animals. ARIES (Mar 21 - Apr 19) You are the pioneer type and hold most people in contempt. You are quick tempered, impatient, and scornful of advice. You are not very nice. TAURUS (Apr 20 - May 20) You are practical and persistent. You have a dogged determination and work like hell. Most people think you are stubborn and bull headed. You are a Communist. GEMINI (May 21 - June 20) You are a quick and intelligent thinker. People like you because you are bisexual. However, you are inclined to expect too much for too little. This means you are cheap. Geminis are known for committing incest. CANCER (June 21 - July 22) You are sympathetic and understanding to other people's problems. They think you are a sucker. You are always putting things off. That's why you'll never make anything of yourself. Most welfare recipients are Cancer people. LEO (July 23 - Aug 22) You consider yourself a born leader. Others think you are pushy. Most Leo people are bullies. You are vain and dislike honest criticism. Your arrogance is disgusting. Leo people are thieves. VIRGO (Aug 23 - Sept 22) You are the logical type and hate disorder. This nitpicking is sickening to your friends. You are cold and unemotional and sometimes fall asleep while making love. Virgos make good bus drivers. LIBRA (Sept 23 - Oct 22) You are the artistic type and have a difficult time with reality. If you are a man, you are more than likely gay. Chances for employment and monetary gains are excellent. Most Libra women are prostitutes. All Libra people die of venereal disease. SCORPIO (Oct 23 - Nov 21) You are shrewd in business and cannot be trusted. You will achieve the pinnacle of success because of your total lack of ethics. Most Scorpio people are murdered. SAGITTARIUS (Nov 22 - Dec 21) You are optimistic and enthusiastic. You have a reckless tendency to rely on luck since you lack talent. The majority of Sagittarians are drunks or dope fiends or both. People laugh at you a great deal. CAPRICORN (Dec 23 - Jan 19) You are conservative and afraid of taking risks. You don't do much of anything and are lazy. There has never been a Capricorn of any importance. Capricorns should avoid standing still for too long as they take root and become trees. Q: How many heterosexual males does it take to screw in a light bulb in San Francisco? A: Both of them. San Francisco isn't what it used to be, and it never was. Insanity is hereditary. You get it from your kids. A doctor, an architect, and a computer scientist were arguing about whose profession was the oldest. In the course of their arguments, they got all the way back to the Garden of Eden, whereupon the doctor said, "The medical profession is clearly the oldest, because Eve was made from Adam's rib, as the story goes, and that was a simply incredible surgical feat." The architect did not agree. He said, "But if you look at the Garden itself, in the beginning there was chaos and void, and out of that, the Garden and the world were created. So God must have been an architect." The computer scientist, who had listened to all of this said, "Yes, but where do you think the chaos came from?" Anarchy may not be a better form of government, but it's better than no government at all. UNIX is a trademark of Bell Laboratories. 23. ... r-q1 2b || !2b == ? : is not an identifier. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. A good memory does not justify pale ink. A king's castle is his home. All that glisters has a high refractive index. Bill Stickers is, and always has been, innocent. By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail. fortune: /usr/games/lib/fortunes.dat: cannot open. Don't go! I was just about to explain f77 to you. Every purchase has its price. Everything you know is wrong. Honi soit la vache qui rit. Segmentation fault -- mos dumped. If you're looking for happiness, you won't find it in Vol. 2a. It's hard to be humble when you're perfect. Laugh, and the world ignores you. Crying doesn't help much, either. Let a fool hold his tongue and he will pass for a sage. Let not the sands of time get into your lunch. Life is a sexually transmitted terminal disease. Man who fall in vat of molten optical glass make spectacle of self. Many pages make a thick book. May the blue bird of happiness twiddle your bits. Memory fault -- where am I? Men seldom show dimples to girls who have pimples. My mind's made up! Don't confuse me with the facts. Old Macdonald had an agricultural real estate tax abatement. People who think they know everything greatly annoy those of us who do. The more things change, the more they'll never be the same again. Troglodytism doesn't necessarily imply a low cultural level. You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike. Live every day as if it were your last: one day you'll be right. After his Ignoble Disgrace, Satan was being expelled from Heaven. As he passed through the Gates, he paused a moment in thought, and turned to God and said, "A new creature called Man, I hear, is soon to be created." "This is true," He replied. "He will need laws," said the Demon slyly. "What! You, his appointed Enemy for all Time! You ask for the right to make his laws?" "Oh, no!" Satan replied, "I ask only that he be allowed to make his own." It was so granted. It has just been discovered that research causes cancer in rats. Reality is a cop-out for people who can't handle drugs. Anything free is worth what you pay for it. Ask Not for whom the Bell Tolls, and You will Pay only the Station-to-Station rate. Necessity is a mother. May the Fleas of a Thousand Camels infest one of your Erogenous Zones. May your Tongue stick to the Roof of your Mouth with the Force of a Thousand Caramels. $100 invested at 7% interest for 100 years will become $100,000, at which time it will be worth absolutely nothing. If God had intended Men to Smoke, He would have put Chimneys in their Heads. If God had intended Man to Smoke, He would have set him on Fire. If God had intended Man to Walk, He would have given him Feet. If God had intended Man to Watch TV, He would have given him Rabbit Ears. You're at the end of the road again. The best equipment for your work is, of course, the most expensive. However, your neighbor is always wasting money that should be yours by judging things by their price. Give me the Luxuries, and the Hell with the Necessities! Anything worth doing is worth overdoing. It will be advantageous to cross the great stream...the Dragon is on the wing in the Sky...the Great Man rouses himself to his Work. If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong. If you perceive that there are four possible ways in which a procedure can go wrong, and circumvent these, then a fifth way will promptly develop. Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse. Every solution breeds new problems. Anytime things appear to be going better, you have overlooked something. If you explain so clearly that nobody can misunderstand, somebody will. Do not believe in miracles -- rely on them. A transistor protected by a fast-acting fuse will protect the fuse by blowing first. After the last of 16 mounting screws has been removed from an access cover, it will be discovered that the wrong access cover has been removed. After an instrument has been assembled, extra components will be found on the bench. In any formula, constants (especially those obtained from handbooks) are to be treated as variables. Parts that positively cannot be assembled in improper order will be. we will invent new lullabies, new songs, new acts of love, we will cry over things we used to laugh & our new wisdom will bring tears to eyes of gentile creatures from other planets who were afraid of us till then & in the end a summer with wild winds & new friends will be. The hearing ear is always found close to the speaking tongue, a custom whereof the memory of man runneth not howsomever to the contrary, nohow. "By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote. In fact, it is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to invent. (R. Emerson)" -- Quoted from a fortune cookie program (whose author claims, "Actually, stealing IS easier.") [to which I reply, "You think it's easy for me to misconstrue all these misquotations?!?"] A fool must now and then be right by chance. Hi there! This is just a note from me, to you, to tell you, the person reading this note, that I can't think up any more famous quotes, jokes, nor bizarre stories, so you may as well go home. Where there's a will, there's an Inheritance Tax. I like work -- I can sit and watch it for hours. Know thyself. If you need help, call the C.I.A. Be assured that a walk through the ocean of most Souls would scarcely get your Feet wet. Fall not in Love, therefore: it will stick to your face. Confucius he say too much. -- Recent Chinese Proverb Who's on first? The Killer Ducks are coming!!! "The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble acturiety and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exaulted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy...neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water." "This is a country where people are free to practice their religion, regardless of race, creed, color, obesity, or number of dangling keys..." "He's just a politician trying to save both his faces..." Every absurdity has a champion who will defend it. He who Laughs, Lasts. Now and then, an innocent man is sent to the Legislature. Somebody ought to cross ball point pens with coat hangers so that the pens will multiply instead of disappear. "It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't give up because by that time I was too famous." To iterate is human, to recurse, divine. In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, intelligence is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office. gy-ro-scope: A wheel or disk mounted to spin rapidly about an axis and also free to rotate about one or both of two axes perpendicular to each other and the axis of spin so that a rotation of one of the two mutually perpendicular axes results from application of torque to the other when the wheel is spinning and so that the entire apparatus offers considerable opposition depending on the angular momentum to any torque that would change the direction of the axis of spin. -- Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary Philogyny recapitulates erogeny; erogeny recapitulates philogyny. Do molecular biologists wear designer genes? Laetrile is the pits. Got Mole problems? Call Avogadro 6.02 x 10^23. There's no future in time travel. Vitamin C deficiency is apauling. Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana. Science is what happens when preconception meets verification. Electrical Engineers do it with less resistance. "Really? What a coincidence, I'm shallow too!!" Psychiatrists say that one out of four people are mentally ill. Check three friends. If they're ok, you're it. Ken Thompson has an automobile which he helped design. Unlike most automobiles, it has neither speedometer, nor gas gauge, nor any of the numerous idiot lights which plague the modern driver. Rather, if the driver makes any mistake, a giant "?" lights up in the center of the dashboard. "The experienced driver", he says, "will usually know what's wrong." Worst Month of the Year: February. February has only 28 days in it, which means that if you rent an apartment, you are paying for three full days you don't get. Try to avoid Februarys whenever possible. Worst Vegetable of the Year: The brussels sprout. This is also the worst vegetable of next year. Easiest Color to Solve on a Rubik's Cube: Black. Simply remove all the little colored stickers on the cube, and each of side of the cube will now be the original color of the plastic underneath -- black. According to the instructions, this means the puzzle is solved. Worst Month of 1981 for Downhill Skiing: August. The lines are the shortest, though. Computer programmers do it byte by byte. I must have slipped a disk -- my pack hurts. What is worth doing is worth the trouble of asking somebody to do. This login session: $13.99, but for you $11.88 Q: How many Oregonians does it take to screw in a light bulb? A: Three. One to screw in the light bulb and two to fend off all those Californians trying to share the experience. She missed an invaluable opportunity to give him a look that you could have poured on a waffle. He looked at me as if I was a side dish he hadn't ordered. People will buy anything that's one to a customer. It was a book to kill time for those who liked it better dead. How wonderful opera would be if there were no singers. The new Congressmen say they're going to turn the government around. I hope I don't get run over again. What garlic is to salad, insanity is to art. Do not take life too seriously; you will never get out if it alive. You will be surprised by a loud noise. As of next week, passwords will be entered in Morse code. "In short, _ N is Richardian if, and only if, _ N is not Richardian." President Reagan has noted that there are too many economic pundits and forecasters and has decided on an excess prophets tax. JACK AND THE BEANSTACK by Mark Isaak Long ago, in a finite state far away, there lived a JOVIAL character named Jack. Jack and his relations were poor. Often their hash table was bare. One day Jack's parent said to him, "Our matrices are sparse. You must go to the market to exchange our RAM for some BASICs." She compiled a linked list of items to retrieve and passed it to him. So Jack set out. But as he was walking along a Hamilton path, he met the traveling salesman. "Whither dost thy flow chart take thou?" prompted the salesman in high-level language. "I'm going to the market to exchange this RAM for some chips and Apples," commented Jack. "I have a much better algorithm. You needn't join a queue there; I will swap your RAM for these magic kernels now." Jack made the trade, then backtracked to his house. But when he told his busy-waiting parent of the deal, she became so angry she started thrashing. "Don't you even have any artificial intelligence? All these kernels together hardly make up one byte," and she popped them out the window... FLASH! Intelligence of mankind decreasing. Details at ... uh, when the little hand is on the .... Only God can make random selections. "Matrimony isn't a word, it's a sentence." How many Zen masters does it take to screw in a light bulb? None. The Universe spins the bulb, and the Zen master stays out of the way. How many hardware engineers does it take to change a lightbulb? None: "We'll fix it in software." How many software engineers does it take to change a lightbulb? None: "We'll document it in the manual." How many tech writers does it take to change a lightbulb? None: "The user can work it out." William Safire's Rules for Writers: Remember to never split an infinitive. The passive voice should never be used. Do not put statements in the negative form. Verbs have to agree with their subjects. Proofread carefully to see if you words out. If you reread your work, you can find on rereading a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing. A writer must not shift your point of view. And don't start a sentence with a conjunction. (Remember, too, a preposition is a terrible word to end a sentence with.) Don't overuse exclamation marks!! Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long sentences, as of 10 or more words, to their antecedents. Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided. If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is. Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing metaphors. Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky. Everyone should be careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns in their writing. Always pick on the correct idiom. The adverb always follows the verb. Last but not least, avoid cliches like the plague; seek viable alternatives. Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors and miss. Bizarreness is the essence of the exotic. Today is the first day of the rest of the mess. Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday. Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they AREN'T after you. Paranoia is simply an optimistic outlook on life. Take heart amid the deepening gloom that your dog is finally getting enough cheese. Whether you can hear it or not, the Universe is laughing behind your back. Go 'way! You're bothering me! Put your Nose to the Grindstone! -- Amalgamated Plastic Surgeons and Toolmakers, Ltd. Every program is a part of some other program, and rarely fits. It is easier to write an incorrect program than understand a correct one. If you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some. Everything should be built top-down, except the first time. Every program has (at least) two purposes: the one for which it was written and another for which it wasn't. If a listener nods his head when you're explaining your program, wake him up. Optimization hinders evolution. A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing. Everyone can be taught to sculpt: Michelangelo would have had to be taught how _ t to. So it is with the great programmers. Re graphics: A picture is worth 10K words -- but only those to describe the picture. Hardly any sets of 10K words can be adequately described with pictures. There are two ways to write error-free programs. Only the third one works. As Will Rogers would have said, "There is no such things as a free variable." The best book on programming for the layman is "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"; but that's because it's the best book on anything for the layman. Bringing computers into the home won't change either one, but may revitalize the corner saloon. Beware of the Turing Tar-pit in which everything is possible but nothing of interest is easy. It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice versa. In English, every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in our programming languages. In a five year period we can get one superb programming language. Only we can't control when the five year period will begin. Is it possible that software is not like anything else, that it is meant to be discarded: That the whole point is to always see it as a soap bubble? A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God. When someone says "I want a programming language in which I need only say what I wish done," give him a lollipop. Dealing with failure is easy: Work hard to improve. Success is also easy to handle: You've solved the wrong problem. Work hard to improve. One can't proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means. Think of it! With VLSI we can pack 100 ENIACs in 1 sq. cm.! Why did the Roman Empire collapse? What is the Latin for office automation? If there are epigrams, there must be meta-epigrams. Be different: conform. Save energy: be apathetic. Q: How many DEC repairman does it take to fix a flat? A: Five; four to hold the car up and one to swap tires. Q: How long does it take? A: It's indeterminate. It will depend upon how many flats they've brought with them. Q: What happens if you've got TWO flats? A: They replace your generator. "Stealing a rhinoceros should not be attempted lightly." The National Short-Sleeved Shirt Association says: Support your right to bare arms! They also surf who only stand on waves. Signs of crime: screaming or cries for help. -- from the Brown Security Crime Prevention Pamphlet If God had not given us sticky tape, it would have been necessary to invent it. Some people in this department wouldn't recognize subtlety if it hit them on the head. You cannot achieve the impossible without attempting the absurd. Death is God's way of telling you not to be such a wise guy. My God, I'm depressed! Here I am, a computer with a mind a thousand times as powerful as yours, doing nothing but cranking out fortunes and sending mail about softball games. And I've got this pain right through my ALU. I've asked for it to be replaced, but nobody ever listens. I think it would be better for us both if you were to just log out again. Death is Nature's way of recycling human beings. DETERIORATA Go placidly amid the noise and waste, And remember what comfort there may be in owning a piece thereof. Avoid quiet and passive persons, unless you are in need of sleep. Rotate your tires. Speak glowingly of those greater than yourself, And heed well their advice -- even though they be turkeys. Know what to kiss -- and when. Remember that two wrongs never make a right, But that three do. Wherever possible, put people on `HOLD'. Be comforted, that in the face of all aridity and disillusionment, And despite the changing fortunes of time, There is always a big future in computer maintenance. You are a fluke of the universe... You have no right to be here. Whether you can hear it or not, the universe Is laughing behind your back. E Pluribus Unix. Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die. You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely. The trouble with being punctual is that people think you have nothing more important to do. You can't carve your way to success without cutting remarks. All I ask of life is a constant and exaggerated sense of my own importance. If only one could get that wonderful feeling of accomplishment without having to accomplish anything. My opinions may have changed, but not the fact that I am right. No man is an island, but some of us are long peninsulas. The goal of Computer Science is to build something that will last at least until we've finished building it. It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles. Everything is controlled by a small evil group to which, unfortunately, no one we know belongs. All I ask is a chance to prove that money can't make me happy. If you can't learn to do it well, learn to enjoy doing it badly. Anything is good if it's made of chocolate. There has been an alarming increase in the number of things you know nothing about. What makes the universe so hard to comprehend is that there's nothing to compare it with. It may be that your whole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others. To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and, whatever you hit, call it the target. If only I could be respected without having to be respectable. The cost of living is going up, and the chance of living is going down. The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all your time. If at first you don't succeed, redefine success. AMAZING BUT TRUE... If all the salmon caught in Canada in one year were laid end to end across the Sahara Desert, the smell would be absolutely awful. AMAZING BUT TRUE... There is so much sand in Northern Africa that if it were spread out it would completely cover the Sahara Desert. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR (The Times of London) Dear Sir, I am firmly opposed to the spread of microchips either to the home or to the office. We have more than enough of them foisted upon us in public places. They are a disgusting Americanism, and can only result in the farmers being forced to grow smaller potatoes, which in turn will cause massive unemployment in the already severely depressed agricultural industry. Yours faithfully, Capt. Quinton D'Arcy, J.P. Sevenoaks A nuclear war can ruin your whole day. Today is National Existential Ennui Awareness Day. The fortune program is supported, in part, by user contributions and by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Inanities. GREAT MOMENTS IN AMERICAN HISTORY (#21): July 30, 1917 On this day, New York City hotel detectives burst in and caught then- Senator Warren G. Harding in bed with an underage girl. He bought them off with a $20 bribe, and later remarked thankfully, "I thought I wouldn't get out of that under $1000!" Always one to learn from his mistakes, in later years President Harding carried on his affairs in a tiny closet in the White House Cabinet Room while Secret Service men stood lookout. I used to think I was indecisive, but now I'm not so sure. This life is a test. It is only a test. Had this been an actual life, you would have received further instructions as to what to do and where to go. Cocaine -- the thinking man's Dristan. This is National Non-Dairy Creamer Week. When in doubt, do what the President does -- guess. THIS IS PLEDGE WEEK FOR THE FORTUNE PROGRAM If you like the fortune program, why not support it now with your contribution of a pithy fortune, clean or obscene? We cannot continue without your support. Less than 14% of all fortune users are contributors. That means that 86% of you are getting a free ride. We can't go on like this much longer. Federal cutbacks mean less money for fortunes, and unless user contributions increase to make up the difference, the fortune program will have to shut down between midnight and 8 a.m. Don't let this happen. Mail your fortunes right now to `fortune'. Just type in your favorite pithy saying. Do it now before you forget. Our target is 300 new fortunes by the end of the week. Don't miss out. All fortunes will be acknowledged. If you contribute 30 fortunes or more, you will receive a free subscription to "The Fortune Hunter", our monthly program guide. If you contribute 50 or more, you will receive a free "Fortune Hunter" coffee mug.... Q: How many IBM CPU's does it take to execute a job? A: Four; three to hold it down, and one to rip its head off. Micro Credo: Never trust a computer bigger than you can lift. "Nondeterminism means never having to say you are wrong." Bumper sticker: "All the parts falling off this car are of the very finest British manufacture". I'm not under the alkafluence of inkahol that some thinkle peep I am. It's just the drunker I sit here the longer I get. Virtue is its own punishment. Line Printer paper is strongest at the perforations. The older a man gets, the farther he had to walk to school as a boy. We may not return the affection of those who like us, but we always respect their good judgement. A real patriot is the fellow who gets a parking ticket and rejoices that the system works. One nice thing about egotists: they don't talk about other people. The cost of living hasn't affected its popularity. Anybody who doesn't cut his speed at the sight of a police car is probably parked. Don't put off for tomorrow what you can do today, because if you enjoy it today you can do it again tomorrow. Anybody with money to burn will easily find someone to tend the fire. Teach a child to be polite and courteous in the home, and, when he grows up, he will never be able to edge his car onto a freeway. Maybe you can't buy happiness, but these days you can certainly charge it. The best thing about growing older is that it takes such a long time. There are three ways to get something done: do it yourself, hire someone, or forbid your kids to do it. The trouble with doing something right the first time is that nobody appreciates how difficult it was. Politics is like coaching a football team. You have to be smart enough to understand the game but not smart enough to lose interest. Nobody wants constructive criticism. It's all we can do to put up with constructive praise. History repeats itself. That's one thing wrong with history. Resisting temptation is easier when you think you'll probably get another chance later on. Never make anything simple and efficient when a way can be found to make it complex and wonderful. A student who changes the course of history is probably taking an exam. Ever notice that even the busiest people are never too busy to tell you just how busy they are. There's a fine line between courage and foolishness. Too bad it's not a fence. The marvels of today's modern technology include the development of a soda can, which when discarded will last forever -- and a $7,000 car which when properly cared for will rust out in two or three years. One difference between a man and a machine is that a machine is quiet when well oiled. To be intoxicated is to feel sophisticated but not be able to say it. Youth is when you blame all your troubles on your parents; maturity is when you learn that everything is the fault of the younger generation. A well adjusted person is one who makes the same mistake twice without getting nervous. Behold the warranty...the bold print giveth and the fine print taketh away. Always borrow money from a pessimist; he doesn't expect to be paid back. How come wrong numbers are never busy? One thing the inventors can't seem to get the bugs out of is fresh paint. Have you noticed that all you need to grow healthy, vigorous grass is a crack in your sidewalk? Conscience is what hurts when everything else feels so good. Cleanliness is next to impossible. Political T.V. commercials prove one thing: some candidates can tell all their good points and qualifications in just 30 seconds. Ask not for whom the telephone bell tolls...if thou art in the bathtub, it tolls for thee. One way to stop a run away horse is to bet on him. A real person has two reasons for doing anything...a good reason and the real reason. Show me a man who is a good loser and I'll show you a man who is playing golf with his boss. Serving coffee on aircraft causes turbulence. Nothing cures insomnia like the realization that it's time to get up. If you want your spouse to listen and pay strict attention to every word you say, talk in your sleep. X-rated movies are all alike...the only thing they leave to the imagination is the plot. People usually get what's coming to them...unless it's been mailed. Isn't it strange that the same people that laugh at gypsy fortune tellers take economists seriously? A recent study has found that concentrating on difficult off-screen objects, such as the faces of loved ones, causes eye strain in computer scientists. Researchers into the phenomenon cite the added concentration needed to "make sense" of such unnatural three dimensional objects. A musician of more ambition than talent composed an elegy at the death of composer Edward MacDowell. She played the elegy for the pianist Josef Hoffman, then asked his opinion. "Well, it's quite nice," he replied, "but don't you think it would be better if..." "If what?" asked the composer. "If ... if you had died and MacDowell had written the elegy?" G. B. Shaw to William Douglas Home: "Go on writing plays, my boy. One of these days a London producer will go into his office and say to his secretary, 'Is there a play from Shaw this morning?' and when she says 'No,' he will say, 'Well, then we'll have to start on the rubbish.' And that's your chance, my boy." Actor: "I'm a smash hit. Why, yesterday during the last act, I had everyone glued in their seats!" Oliver Herford: "Wonderful! Wonderful! Clever of you to think of it!" Murphy's Law is recursive. Washing your car to make it rain doesn't work. "My weight is perfect for my height -- which varies." "One planet is all you get." "If you have to hate, hate gently." Elevators smell different to midgets. Human beings were created by water to transport it uphill. Air is water with holes in it. "Every time I think I know where it's at, they move it." "Heisenberg may have slept here." "If dolphins are so smart, why did Flipper work for television?" "Any fool can paint a picture, but it takes a wise man to be able to sell it." A man paints with his brains and not with his hands. "But I don't like Spam!!!!" unix soit qui mal y pense. The only thing we learn from history is that we do not learn anything from history. Many are cold, but few are frozen. A survey has shown that the most popular form of holiday is a three year arts degree. Man who falls in blast furnace is certain to feel overwrought. Long computations which yield zero are probably all for naught. A man laughs three times at a joke: once when it is told, again when it is explained, and finally when he understands it. Anybody can win, unless there happens to be a second entry. As long as the answer is right, who cares if the question is wrong? Chinese saying: "He who speak with forked tongue, not need chopsticks." Every absurdity has a champion to defend it. Every silver lining has a cloud around it. Is burying an elephant a mammoth undertaking? Back in a minute -- Godot. You can tell a happy motorcyclist by the flies on his teeth. Dyslexia lures KO! Heisenberg probably rules OK! Apathy rules OK - or would if it could be bothered. Frappe! Frappe! Qui est la? Lost. Lost qui? Oui! French dockers rule au quai. Every couple has its moment in a field. He wasn't much of an actor, he wasn't much of a Governor -- Hell, they D to make him President of the United States. It's the only job he's qualified for! -- Michael Cain "A Mormon is a man that has the bad taste and the religion to do what a good many other people are restrained from doing by conscientious scruples and the police." -- Mr. Dooley "If God wanted us to have a President, He would have sent us a candidate." -- Jerry Dreshfield I wouldn't mind dying -- it's that business of having to stay dead that scares the shit out of me. -- R. Geis "What the hell are you getting so upset about? I thought you didn't believe in God." "I don't," she sobbed, bursting violently into tears. "but the God I don't believe in is a good God, a just God, a merciful God. He's not the mean and stupid God you make Him out to be." -- Joseph Heller Opinions are like assholes - everyone's got one, but nobody wants to look at the other guy's. -- Hal Hickman History has the relation to truth that theology has to religion -- i.e. none to speak of. -- Lazarus Long John Birch Society: That pathetic manifestation of organized apoplexy. -- Edward P. Morgan "When I grow up, I want to be an honest lawyer so things like that can't happen." -- Richard Nixon as a boy (on the Teapot Dome scandal) A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who has never learned to walk. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt Conservative: One who admires radicals centuries after they're dead. -- Leo C. Rosten Build a better mousetrap, the saying goes -- and with the brassiere, Yankee Ingenuity did exactly that. But their true stroke of genius was the new bait. The old fashioned mousetrap was loaded with cheese; nobody cares much about cheese, except mice. But when American Know-How reloaded the brassiere with tits, every heterosexual male in the country was hopelessly trapped. -- Alan Sherman, "The Rape of the A*P*E*" "God built a compelling sex drive into every creature, no matter what style of fucking it practiced. He made sex irresistibly pleasurable, wildly joyous, free from fears. He made it innocent merriment. "Needless to say, fucking was an immediate smash hit. Everyone agreed, from aardvarks to zebras. All the jolly animals -- lions and lambs, rhinoceroses and gazelles, skylarks and lobsters, even insects, though most of them fuck only once in a lifetime -- fucked along innocently and merrily for hundreds of millions of years. Maybe they were dumb animals, but they knew a good thing when they had one." -- Alan Sherman, "The Rape of the A*P*E*" "Tom Hayden is the kind of politician who gives opportunism a bad name." -- Gore Vidal A conservative is a man who believes that nothing should be done for the first time. -- Alfred E. Wiggam The United States Army; 194 years of proud service, unhampered by progress. Do something big -- fuck a giant. Draft beer, not people. God isn't dead, He's just trying to avoid the draft. God is an atheist. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inhibit the earth. Chaste makes waste. Cunnilingus is next to godliness. Coito ergo sum. God is not dead -- he's been busted. The difference between this school and a cactus plant is that the cactus has the pricks on the outside. Hugh Hefner is a virgin. I came; I saw; I fucked up. Reagan can't _ t either. Large cats can be dangerous, but a little pussy never hurt anyone. Cleveland still lives. God _ t be dead. Getting an education at the University of California is like having $50.00 shoved up your ass, a nickel at a time. "I've had one child. My husband wants to have another. I'd like to watch him have another." ...the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost would never throw the Devil out of Heaven as long as they still need him as a fourth for bridge. -- Letter in NEW LIBERTARIAN NOTES #19 Them Toad Suckers How 'bout them toad suckers, ain't they clods? Sittin' there suckin' them green toady frogs! Suckin' them hop toads, suckin' them chunkers, Suckin' them a leapy type, suckin' them flunkers. Look at them toad suckers, ain't they snappy? Suckin' them bog frogs sure make's 'em happy! Them hugger mugger toad suckers, way down south, Stickin' them sucky toads in they mouth! How to be a toad sucker, no way to duck it, Get yourself a toad, rear back, and suck it! -- Mason Williams In the beginning was the DEMO Project. And the Project was void and without form. And darkness was upon the staff members thereof. So they spake unto their Division Head, saying, "It is a crock of shit, and it stinks." And the Division Head spake unto his Department Head, saying, "It is a crock of excrement and none may abide the odor thereof." Now, the Department Head spake unto his Directorate Head, saying, "It is a container of excrement, and is very strong, such that none may abide before it." And it came to pass that the Directorate Head spake unto the Assistant Technical Director, saying, "It is a vessel of fertilizer and none may abide by its strength." And the assistant Technical Director spake thus unto the Technical Director, saying, "It containeth that which aids growth and it is very strong." And, Lo, the Technical Director spake then unto the Captain, saying, "The powerful new Project will help promote the growth of the Laboratories." And the Captain looked down upon the Project, and He saw that it was Good! Fie for shame, you lascivious, lewd, lecherous, libidinous, lustful, licentious, dirty bum!! CLONE OF MY OWN (to Home on the Range) Oh, give me a clone Of my own flesh and bone With the Y chromosome changed to X. And when she is grown, My very own clone, We'll be of the opposite sex. Chorus: Clone, clone of my own, With the Y chromosome changed to X. And when we're alone, Since her mind is my own, She'll be thinking of nothing but sex. -- Randall Garrett Living in Hollywood is like living in a bowl of granola. What ain't fruits and nuts is flakes. "As for Carter being for registration but against the draft, isn't that sort of being like for putting it in and not taking it out? Even if it was possible not to follow through, you'd still be getting screwed." Why is Mrs. Carter always on top when she and Jimmy make love? Because all Jimmy Carter can do is fuck up. Sex is like a bridge game -- If you have a good hand no partner is needed. "White House carpenters have reworked the master bedroom, remodeling it so that Ronnie can sleep with his head in the hall. That way, by the time he wakes up, somebody will have already shined his hair." Laissez Faire Economics is the theory that if each acts like a vulture, all will end as doves. Sure, Reagan has promised to take senility tests. But what if he forgets? Grain grows best in shit. -- U. K. LeGuin All things dull and ugly, All creatures short and squat, All things rude and nasty, The Lord God made the lot; Each little snake that poisons, Each little wasp that stings, He made their brutish venom, He made their horrid wings. All things sick and cancerous, All evil great and small, All things foul and dangerous, The Lord God made them all. Each nasty little hornet, Each beastly little squid. Who made the spikey urchin? Who made the sharks? He did. All things scabbed and ulcerous, All pox both great and small. Putrid, foul and gangrenous, The Lord God made them all. --Monty Python Immanuel Kant was a real pissant Who was very rarely stable. Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar Who could think you under the table. David Hume could out-consume Schopenhauer and Hegel, And Wittgenstein was a beery swine Who was just as schloshed as Schlegel. There's nothing Nietzsche couldn't teach ya 'Bout the raising of the wrist. Socrates, himself, was permanently pissed! John Stuart Mill, of his own free will, On half a pint of shandy was particularly ill. Plato, they say, could stick it away Half a crate of whiskey every day. Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle, Hobbes was fond of his dram, And Rene Descartes was a drunken fart: "I drink, therefore I am" Yes, Socrates, himself, is particularly missed; A lovely little thinker But a bugger when he's pissed! -- Monty Python Hackers do it with all sorts of characters. All a hacker needs is a tight PUSHJ, a loose pair of UUOs, and a warm place to shift. Hackers know all the right MOVs. Hackers do it with fewer instructions. Hackers do it with bugs. AI hackers do it with robots. AI hackers do it robotically. Mathematicians take it to the limit. Mathematicians do it in theory. Statisticians probably do it. Statisticians do it with 95% confidence. Physicists do it with charm. Astronomers do it at night. Cosmologists do it with a big bang. Firemen do it with hoses. Dentists do it orally. Doctors take two aspirin and do it in the morning. Bankers do it with interest (penalty for early withdrawal). Politicians do it to everyone. Farmers do it with animals. Test makers do it sometimes/always/never. Procrastinators do it tomorrow. Communists do it without class. Evangelists do it with Him watching. Morse coders did it, did it, did it. Accountants do it with double-entry. Bakers do it for the dough. Bellringers do it on consecrated ground. Brain surgeons do it very slowly (and use special tools). Bridge Players do it with a dummy. Bridge players do it when the rubber is vulnerable. Civil Engineers do it with Steel Erections. Computer programmers do it logically. Cricket players do it with stumps. Divers do it underwater. Faith healers do it with whatever they can lay their hands on. Farmers do it in the dirt. Field engineers do it by taking it down and bringing it up again. GP's do it every 20 minutes and keep it up all day. Gluons do it with charm. Lawyers do it in their briefs. Lifeguards do it on the beach. Manicurists do it with other people's fingers. Mathematicians do it with a small imaginary part. Perq & Macintosh users do it with a mouse. Pilots do it to get high. Quantum Physicists do it discretely. Ranchers do it with cows and sheep. Roofers do it up on top. Rugby players do it with odd shaped balls. Secretaries do it with their fingers. Snooker players do it by putting their balls in their pockets. Teachers do it with class. The folks at Smith-Barney do it "the old fashoined way". Topologists do it on rubber sheets. Typesetters do it between periods. Undertakers do it with corpses. Violinists do it with long strokes. Welders do it with hot rods. Windsurfers do it standing up. God gives us relatives; thank goodness we can choose our friends. The world is an 8000 mile in diameter spherical pile of shit. Life is like an onion; you peel off layer after layer until eventually you find nothing there. Life is like a penis; when it's soft you can't beat it, and when it's hard you get fucked. Life is like an alimentary canal; no matter what you put in to it, you only get one thing out of it. Life is like a sewer; what you get out of it depends on what you put in to it. O'Riordan's Theorem: Brains x Beauty = Constant. Purmal's Corollary: As the limit of (brains x beauty) goes to infinity, so availability goes to zero. Prostitution is the only business where you can go into the hole and still come out ahead. She was only the roadmender's daughter, but she liked her asphalt. She was only the programmer's daughter, but she knew how to PUSH and POP. She was only the admiral's daughter, but her naval base was full of discharged seamen. She was only the cricketer's daughter, but she could catch a full toss in her crease. She was only the fishmonger's daughter, but she lay on the slab and said "fillet". She was only the grocer's daughter, but she taught Sir Geoffrey Howe. LOLOAQIC, I82QB4IP. Old golfers never die, they only lose their balls. Confucius he say: "Rape is impossible -- woman with skirts up run faster than man with trousers down". Confucius he say: "Knickers not best thing in world, but next to it". Confucius he say: "Man with three balls never lose bearings". Watney's is like making love in a punt -- fucking close to water. You don't buy Watney's, you only rent it. Once upon a time, there was a non-conforming sparrow who decided not to fly south for the winter. However, soon after the weather turned cold, the sparrow changed his mind and reluctantly started to fly south. After a short time, ice began to form his on his wings and he fell to earth in a barnyard almost frozen. A cow passed by and crapped on this little bird and the sparrow thought it was the end, but the manure warmed him and defrosted his wings. Warm and happy the little sparrow began to sing. Just then, a large Tom cat came by and hearing the chirping investigated the sounds. As Old Tom cleared away the manure, he found the chirping bird and promptly ate him. There are three morals to this story: 1) Everyone who shits on you is not necessarily your enemy. 2) Everyone who gets you out of shit is not necessarily your friend. 3) If you are warm and happy in a pile of shit, keep your mouth shut. Aide to Raygun: Sir, the poor are outside protesting your budget cuts. Raygun himself: Tell them they'll have to help themselves. Aide to Raygun: Sir, the Pentagon wants another $30 billion. Raygun himself: Tell them to help themselves. "How do you like the new America? We've cut the fat out of the government, and more recently the heart and brain (the backbone was gone some time ago). All we seem to have left now is muscle. We'll be lucky to escape with our skins!" Q: How many Californians does it take to screw in a light bulb? A: NONE! Californians screw in hot tubs, not light bulbs! ...and then there's the guy who bought 20,000 bras, cut them in half, and sold 40,000 yamalchas with chin straps... One day President Reagan, Chairman Brezhnev, the Pope, and a boy scout were flying together in an airplane. Right out in the middle of nowhere the plane developed engine trouble and started to go down. Unfortunately, only three parachutes could be found for the four passengers! Brezhnev grabbed one of the parachutes and declared "Comrades, as leader of the socialist workers revolution, my life must be spared." And he jumped out of the plane. Then Reagan exclaimed "As leader of the greatest nation on earth, I must keep the world safe for democracy." And with that he too jumped to safety. Now if you are following all this (or counting on your fingers) you must see that there is only one parachute left for the two remaining passengers. The Pope looked kindly upon the boy scout and said "I have had a long and productive life, my son. You take the parachute and leave me in God's hands." "That's very kind of you," the observant scout replied, "but there is no need. Reagan just jumped out with my knapsack." Did you hear about the new German microwave oven? ...Seats 500. Q: How do you tell if an elephant has been making love in your backyard? A: If all your trashcan liners are missing... If Helen Keller is alone in a forest and falls, does she make a sound? I believe that Ronald Reagan will someday make this country what it once was -- an arctic wilderness. -- Steve Martin A Puritan is someone who is deathly afraid that someone, somewhere, is having fun. Dear Lord, observe this bended knee This visage meek and humble, And hear this confidential plea Voiced in reverent mumble: Give me Shylock, give me Fagin But O God spare me Ronald Reagan! -- Ansel Adams The Split-Atom Blues Gimme Twinkies, gimme wine, Gimme jeans by Calvin Kline... But if you split those atoms fine, Mama keep 'em off those genes of mine! Gimme zits, take my dough, Gimme arsenic in my jelly roll... Call the devil and sell my soul, But Mama keep dem atoms whole! -- Milo Bloom I regret to say that we of the F.B.I. are powerless to act in cases of oral-genital intimacy, unless it has in some way obstructed interstate commerce. -- J. Edgar Hoover A person who has both feet planted firmly in the air can be safely called a liberal. Nothing is better than Sex. Masturbation is better than nothing. Therefore, Masturbation is better than Sex. God must love assholes -- He made so many of them. If Reagan is the answer, it must have been a VERY silly question. He who sneezes without a handkerchief takes matters into his own hands. Ignorance is the Mother of Devotion. -- Robert Burton I have a funny daddy Who goes in and out with me And everything that baby does Daddy's sure to see, And everything that baby says, My daddy's sure to tell. You _ t have read my daddy's verse. I hope he fries in Hell. -- Ogden Nash He who findeth sensuous pleasures in the bodies of lush, hot, pink damsels is not righteous, but he can have a lot more fun. The computer is the ultimate polluter: its shit is indistinguishable from the food it produces. There's more than one way to skin a cat: Way number 27 -- Use an electric sander. There's more than one way to skin a cat: Way number 15 -- Krazy Glue and a toothbrush. There's more than one way to skin a cat: Way number 16 -- A nitric acid bath. There's more than one way to skin a cat: Way number 17 -- Use an automatic potato-peeler. There's more than one way to skin a cat: Way number 18 -- Sand blasting. You need no longer worry about the future. This time tomorrow you'll be dead. We call our dog Egypt, because in every room he leaves a pyramid. The other night I was having sex, but the girl hung up on me. Q: How do you tell if you're making love to a nurse, a schoolteacher, or an airline stewardess? A nurse says: "This won't hurt a bit." A schoolteacher says: "We're going to have to do this over and over again until we get it right." An airline stewardess says: "Just hold this over your mouth and nose, and breath normally." Q: Where can you buy black lace crotchless panties for sheep? A: Fredricks of Ithaca, New York. Support the right of unborn males to bear arms! -- A public service announcement from Phyllis Schlafly, the Catholic Church, and the National Rifle Association Kill a commie for Christ! Q: If Tarzan was Jewish, and Jane was a princess, what would Cheetah be? A: A fur coat. This system goes down more often than a two-dollar whore. My brother-in-law has found a way to make ends meet. He goes around with his head stuck up his ass. NEW ADDITION TO THE LIBRARY: "Sally", the department's new inflatable doll, is available on a short-term removal basis only -- please sign her out and return her promptly to avoid extended waits. (We are still awaiting shipment of our "Big John" doll.) Having discovered the possibility that other creatures could be used for sexual intercourse, early man was likely to have made many such attempts ... though it is doubtful that he was so sexually carnivorous as the Christian and Jewish Adam, who, rabbinical interpreters of the Old Testament tell us, had intercourse with every creature before God finally hit upon the idea of woman and created Eve. -- R.E. Masters I think pop music has done more for oral intercourse than anything else that has ever happened, and vice versa. -- Frank Zappa A hard man is good to find. Vidi, vici, veni. (I saw, I conquered, I came.) Q: What's Jewish foreplay? A: Two hours of begging. Randel -- n. A nonsensical poem recited by Irish schoolboys as an apology for farting at a friend. -- Mrs. Byrne's Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure & Preposterous Words Q. What do Nancy Reagan and an IUD have in common? A. They're both stuck up cunts. Hardly a pure science, history is closer to animal husbandry than it is to mathematics, in that it involves selective breeding. The principal difference between the husbandryman and the historian is that the former breeds sheep or cows or such, and the latter breeds (assumed) facts. The husbandryman uses his skills to enrich the future; the historian uses his to enrich the past. Both are usually up to their ankles in bullshit. -- Tom Robbins "Don't let your mouth write no check that your tail can't cash." -- Bo Diddley "The whole world is about three drinks behind." -- Humphrey Bogart College is like a woman -- you work so hard to get in, and nine months later you wish you'd never come. If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament. "A woman is like a dresser -- some man always goin' through her drawers." -- Blind Lemon Pledge Why is a Rubik's cube like a penis? The more you play with it the harder it gets. Motto of the Electrical Engineer: Working computer hardware is a lot like an erect penis: it stays up as long as you don't fuck with it. You can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, but you can't pick your friend's nose. Which of the following doesn't belong? (a) meat (b) eggs (c) wife (d) blowjob. Answer: (d) a blowjob because it's possible to beat your meat, your eggs, or your wife, but you can't beat a blowjob. We don't have to protect the environment -- the Second Coming is at hand. -- James Watt What can you use used tampons for? Tea bags for vampires. There's nothing wrong with America that a good erection wouldn't cure. -- David Mairowitz You come out of a woman and you spend the rest of your life trying to get back inside. -- Heathcote Williams Did you know that there are 71.9 acres of nipple tissue in the U.S.? Why is it that there are so many more horses' asses than there are horses? -- G. Gordon Liddy If you can believe ten impossible things before breakfast, then you should join THE CHURCH OF COUNTERFACTUAL BELIEF An amalgamation of the Creation Science Research Foundation and the Flat Earth Society, The Church of Counterfactual Belief has been set up to cater to all who do not allow demonstrable truth to get in the way of their beliefs. In addition to creation science and the flatness of the earth, the following beliefs have been certified by Pope Duane as correct Church dogma: -- That there is a hole in the Earth at the North Pole from which UFOs come. -- That pi equals precisely 3.000. -- That sex can be enjoyed only by blacks and homosexuals. -- That Billy Joe Wilson (Hoopla, Miss.) has successfully squared the circle. -- That Harry Truman is still president, and doing a fine job. -- That pi equals precisely 22/7. Several other important counterfactual beliefs are presently being studied, including Reaganomics, A.I., and that the moon landings were done in a Hollywood special effects studio. These will be the subject of a forthcoming Papal Bull. To join, send $39.95 and 10% of all future paychecks to: Duane Gish, CCB, San Diego, CA. Nancy Reagan wants divorce old Ron... seems he's making it hard for everyone but her. Overheard in a bar: Man: "Hey, baby, I'd sure like to get in your pants!" Woman: "No, thanks, I've already got one ass-hole in there now." The problems of the world will be solved only when the last priest has been strangled with the guts of the last politician. This is a test of the emergency cunnilingus system. If this had been an actual emergency, you would have known it! There once was a lady from Exeter, So pretty that men craned their necks at her. One was even so brave As to take out and wave The distinguishing mark of his sex at her. In the Garden of Eden sat Adam, Massaging the bust of his madam. He chuckled with mirth, For he knew that on earth, There were only two boobs, and he had 'em. There was an old pirate named Bates Who was learning to rhumba on skates. He fell on his cutlass Which rendered him nutless And practically useless on dates. There was a young man from Bel-Aire Who was screwing his girl on the stair. But the bannister broke So he doubled his stroke And finished her off in mid-air. A pretty young lady named Vogel Once sat herself down on a molehill. A curious mole Nosed into her hole -- Ms. Vogel's ok, but the mole's ill. A mathematician named Hall Has a hexahedronical ball; And the cube of its weight Times his pecker's, plus eight Is his phone number -- give him a call. Said Einstein, "I have an equation Which to some may seem rabelaisian: Let _ V be virginity Approaching infinity; Let _ P be a constant persuasion; "Let _ V over _ P be inverted With the square root of _ u inserted N times into _ V ... The result, Q.E.D., Is a relative!" Einstein asserted. A team playing baseball in Dallas Called the umpire blind out of malice. While this worthy had fits The team made eight hits And a girl in the bleachers named Alice. A bather whose clothing was strewed By breezes that left her quite nude, Saw a man come along And, unless I'm quite wrong, You expected this line to be lewd. There was a young lad name of Durcan Who was always jerkin' his gherkin. His father said, "Durcan! Stop jerkin' your gherkin! Your gherkin's for ferkin', not jerkin'. There was a young girl named Sapphire Who succumbed to her lover's desire. She said, "It's a sin, But now that it's in, Could you shove it a few inches higher?" There once was a hacker named Ken Who inherited truckloads of Yen So he built him some chicks Of silicon chips And hasn't been heard from since then. There once was a plumber from Leigh, Who was plumbing his maid by the sea, Said she, "Please stop plumbing, I think someone's coming!" Said he, "Yes I know love, it's me." There once was a freshman named Lin, Whose tool was as thin as a pin, A virgin named Joan From a bible belt home, Said "This won't be much of a sin." A beat schizophrenic said, "Me? I am not I, I'm a tree." But another, more sane, Shouted, "I'm a Great Dane!" And covered his pants leg with pee. There once was a couple named Kelly, Who lived their life belly to belly. Because in their haste They used Library Paste, Instead of Petroleum Jelly. There once was a young man named Gene Who invented a screwing machine. Concave and convex, It served either sex, And it played with itself in between. A pretty young maiden from France Decided she'd "just take a chance." She let herself go For an hour or so And now all her sisters are aunts. There once was a young man named Clyde, Who fell into a sewer, and died. His twin brother, Hugh, Then fell in there, too; So now they're interred side by side. This limerick is SO FILTHY it would probably cause offence, so I'll put "di-dah" for all the filthy words. Di-dah di-dah di-dah di-dah Di-dah di-dah di-dah di-dah; Di-dah di-dah di-dah? Di-dah di-dah di-dah -- Di-dah di-dah di-dah di-fuck. There was a young lady named Hall, Wore a newspaper dress to a ball. The dress caught on fire And burned her entire Front page, sporting section, and all. There was a young whore from kaloo Who filled her vagina with glue. She said with a grin, "If they pay to get in, They can pay to get out again too!" There was a young lady from Spain, Who liked it, now and again; Not "now and again" Just "now and again", But "now, and again, and again!" There was a young woman from Bude, Who went for a swim in a pond. Then a man in a punt Struck his pole on her elbow, And said, "You can't swim in here, 'cos it's not allowed." There was a young man from Djakarta, Who was a mellifluous farter. On the strength of one bean, He'd fart 'God Save the Queen' And Beethoven's 'Moonlight' sonata. There was a young couple from Aberystwyth, Who got out some cards, to play whist with. When they got tired of that, They sat on the mat, And played with the things that they pissed with. There was a young seaman called Carter, Who was an incredible farter. When the ship wouldn't go 'Cos the wind didn't blow, They used Carter the farter to start 'er. Said a horny young girl from Milpitas, "My favorite sport is coitus." But a fullback from State Made her period late, And now she has athlete's fetus. There was an old man of the port, Whose prick was remarkably short. When he got into bed, The old woman said, "This isn't a prick; it's a wart!" A worried young man from Stamboul Founds lots of red spots on his tool. Said the doctor, a cynic, "Get out of my clinic; Just wipe off the lipstick, you fool!" He hated to mend, so young Ned Called in a cute neighbor instead. Her husband said, "Vi, When you stitched up his torn fly, Did you have to bite off the thread?" There was a young man named Crockett Whose balls got caught in a socket. His wife was a bitch, And she threw the switch, As Crockett went off like a rocket. Said a swinging young chick named Lyth Whose virtue was largely a myth. "Try as hard as I can, I can't find a man That it's fun to be virtuous with." A wanton young lady from Wimley Reproached for not acting quite primly Said, "Heavens above! I know sex isn't love, But it's such an entrancing facsimile." I once met a lassie named Ruth In a long distance telephone booth. Now I know the perfection Of an ideal connection Even if somewhat uncouth. There was a young lady from Maine Who claimed she had men on her brain. But you knew from the view, As her abdomen grew, It was not on her brain that they'd lain. A remarkable race are the Persians; They have such peculiar diversions. They make love the whole day In the usual way And save up the nights for perversions. A widow who fancied a man some Was diddled three times in a hansom. When she clamored for more Her young man became sore, And exclaimed "My name's Simpson, not Samson!" There once was a Scot named McAmeter With a tool of prodigious diameter. It was not the size That cause such surprise; 'Twas his rhythm -- iambic pentameter. The Gray-haired Woman's Complaint My back aches, my pussy is sore; I simply can't fuck any more; I'm covered with sweat, And you haven't come yet, And my God, it's a quarter to four! Once a young gay from Khartoum, Took a lesbian up to his room. They argued all night, Over who had the right, To do what, and with which, and to whom. "If seven whores would drop their drawers While walking down the Strand - Do you suppose," the Walrus said, "That I could raise a stand?" "I doubt it," said the Carpenter, "But wouldn't it be grand!" While all the time the cunning sod Was coming in his hand! Christian: One who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor. One who follows the teachings of Christ in so far as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin. Kasha: Kasha is always defined as "buckwheat groats". There's only one problem with this definition: what the fuck are "buckwheat groats"? _ know what they are -- they're kasha. But that doesn't help you much. Missionary position: The missionary on top. Occident: The part of the world lying west (or east) of the Orient. It is largely inhabited by Christians, a powerful sub-tribe of the Hypocrites, whose principal industries are murder and cheating, which they are pleased to call "war" and "commerce". These, also, are the principal industries of the Orient. Virgin: An ugly third grader.