Courtesy of TFTD list-serve by Dan Galvin
No man knows his true character until he has:
run out of gas,
purchased something on the installment plan, and
raised an adolescent.
-Mercelene Cox
An adolescent is a youth old enough to dress himself....
if he could just remember where he dropped his clothes.
Natives who beat drums to drive off evil spirits
are objects of scorn to smart Americans who blow
horns to break up traffic jams.
-Mary Ellen Kelly
"Sexist expression. Avoid using Dame except as a British title"
- Microsoft Word, when asked to check the grammar of
"I graduated from the University of Notre Dame."
-September 1995 Discovery (adapted)
Submitted by Nandakumar Sankaran
I used to think I was indecisive-
but now I am not so sure.
-Paul Elliott
Some people are too big-
Some people are too small-
Some people are just right....-
But they talk too much.
-Grandmother Lisenbee
By the yard,
life is hard.
By the inch,
it's a cinch.
-Unix Fortune File
The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age
brings wisdom.
-- H. L. Mencken
"The first step is the hardest."
Marie Marquise du Deffand
(Said to Cardinal de Polignac, when the Cardinal told her that
St. Denis, after being decapitated, had picked up his head and
carried it two leagues.)
(Ah, Monseigneur, je croirais que dans une telle situation _il n'y
a que le premier pas qui coute_.' - 'Hey Bubba, when you are in
a fix like that _it is only the first step that is difficult_.')
"I have made mistakes but I have never made the mistake of claiming
that I have never made one."
-- James Gordon Bennett
The more he talked of his honor,
the faster we counted our spoons.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
Rand Lindsly's HUGE Quotations File
Taking reservations for eternity:
Smoking or Non-smoking
-Church Sign Board
They laughed at Edison and Einstein,
but somehow I still feel uncomfortable
when they laugh at me.
-Ashleigh Brilliant
(_Pot Shots_)
Said Freud: "I've discovered the Id.
Of all your repressions be rid.
It won't ease the gravity
Of all the depravity,
But you'll know why you did what you did."
-Frank Richards
Don't ever get your speedometer confused with your clock,
like I did once, because the faster you go,
the later you think you are.
-Jack Handey
'Deep Thoughts'
A loyal friend laughs at your jokes when they're not so good,
and sympathizes with your problems when they're not so bad.
-Arnold H. Glasow
_The Wall Street Journal_
The cost of living is high,
but it's worth it.
-Doug Larson
United Feature Syndicate
The right word may be effective,
but no word was ever as effective
as a rightly timed pause.
-Mark Twain
The very essence of leadership
is that you have to have a vision.
You can't blow an uncertain trumpet.
-Theodore Hesburgh
Putting your best foot forward
at least keeps it out of your mouth.
-Morris Mandel in _The Jewish Press_
An Idealist believes the short run doesn't count.
A cynic believes the long run doesn't matter.
A realist believes that what is done or left undone
in the short run determines the long run.
-Sydney J. Harris
The pessimist says the glass is half empty.
The optimist says the glass is half full.
The re-engineering person says you
have twice as much glass as you need.
The wise individual doesn't
get too attached to any of life's pleasures, knowing that
wonderful science is hard at work proving it's bad for him.
-Bill Vaughan
Have patience with all things,
but first of all with yourself.
-St. Francis de Sales
Taking the bull by the horns is often a sound course of action-
as long as you and the bull agree on when you can let go.
-Robert Fuoss
Bees are very busy souls
They have no time for birth controls
And that is why in times like these
There are so many Sons of Bees.
Another Month Ends
All Targets Met
All Systems Working
All Customers Satisfied
All Staff Eager and Enthusiastic
All Pigs Fed and Ready to fly
-Entry in Weekly Schedule
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra
It is an illusion to think that more comfort means more happiness.
Happiness comes of the capacity
to feel deeply,
to enjoy simply,
to think freely, (and)
to be needed.
-Storm Jameson
The problem with people who have no vices is that generally you can be
pretty sure they're going to have some pretty annoying virtues.
-- Elizabeth Taylor
You can love an organization,
but it won't love you back.
-Larry Wilson
A sweater is a garment worn by a child
when his mother feels chilly.
-Anon
If you're not part of the solution,
you're part of the precipitate.
-Kim 101
Just because everything is different doesn't mean anything has changed.
- Southern California Oracle
Gluttony is not a secret vice.
-Orson Wells
"I wish there was a knob on the TV to turn up the intelligence.
There's a knob called `brightness', but it doesn't work."
-- Gallagher
At a lecture on linguistics, the speaker suggested that in English
there wasn't the opposite of a double negative, whereby two affirmatives
resulted in a negative. Someone from the audience called out "Yeah,
right!" which brought down the house.
-quoted in the Electronic AIR Newsletter
The reason a lot of people do not recognize opportunity
is because it usually goes around wearing overalls and
looking too much like hard work.
-Thomas Edison
A patriotic American likes to discuss the
Constitution of the United States despite the
fact he has never taken the time to read it.
-Anon
"Having just returned from 7 months in Japan and Korea, it
seems to me today that the main purpose of life is: 1) to
have a job in whose ultimate purpose you can believe; 2) to have
friends whose immediate purposes you can trust; 3) to have some
spot on the earth to which you can return as home; 4) to be at
same time a citizen of some larger world.
-James A. Michener
April 20, 1952
Common sense is the most evenly distributed
quantity in the world. Everyone thinks he has enough.
-Descartes, 1637
Millions long for immortality who do not know
what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.
-Swan Ertz
We should be thankful for the good things we have
and, also, for the bad things we don't have.
-Anon
The TFTD for 1Nov95 was as follows:
Real computer scientists despise the idea of actual hardware. Hardware
has limitations, software doesn't. It's a real shame that Turing
machines are so poor at I/O.
This was a thought that came from the Unix Fortune File. TFTD knew it
wasn't suitable to go out but enjoyed it so much hinself that it was moved
to the bottom of the stack of thoughts in line to be distributed. It
happened that TFTD was out of town for nearly a week and then didn't review
the list as quickly as needed and the thought went out.
Following is a brief description of a Turing machine from _Introduction to
Automata Theory, Languages, and Computation_, by John E.Hopcroft and
Jeffrey D. Ullman, 1979, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc.
The Turing machine is a simple mathematical model of a computer. Despite
its simplicity, the Turing machine models the computing capability of a
general-purpose computer. p 146
The basic model ... has a finite control, an input tape that is divided
into cells, and a tape head that scans one cell of the tape at a time. The
tape has a leftmost cell but is infinite to the right. each cell of the
tape may hold exactly one of a finite number of tape symbols. Initially,
the n leftmost cells, for some finite n >= 0, hold the input, which is a
string of symbols chosen from a subset of the tape symbols called the input
symbols. The remaining infinity of cells each hold the blank, which is a
special tape symbol that is not an input symbol.
In one move the Turing machine, depending upon the symbol scanned by the
tape head and the state of the finite control,
1) changes state,
2) prints a symbol on the tape cell scanned, replacing what was written there,
and
3) moves its head left or right one cell. p 148
Please note that there isn't any I/O (input/output) devices such as tapes
as we think of them, keyboards, printers, disks, etc.
A. M. Turing developed the concept of a Turing machine.
So, no way this thought could be funny unless one had labored with the 'one
step at a time' computer. TFTD regrets the error.
"The object is Toledo, not to follow"
-Dan Galvin's Sig File
(Dan Galvin - University of Toledo)
It seems everything in the world
gets more valuable as it ages-
except the human body.
-Ken Roesler
War hath no fury like a non-combatant.
-- Charles Edward Montague
The date change to the year 2000 is not that far off.
'For many computer and software systems,
the year 2000 will bring a host of problems
related to software programs that
record the year using only the last two digits.'
Following are two of the 51 reasons given for not working on the problem:
19. January 1st 2000 falls on a Saturday and Monday's a holiday...
you'll have lots of time over the weekend.
22. You don't thinks it's such a big deal...
but you'll have a programmer wear a beeper
just in case anything goes wrong.
-The Year 2000 Information Center
http://www.year2000.com/cgi-bin/clock.cgi
Credit is what keeps you from
knowing how far past broke you are.
-Zingers
It has come to our attention that
there is a remote tribe that worships
the number zero. Is nothing sacred?
I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.
- Socrates
Don't insult the gator till you cross the river.
-Gladstone
E = MC**2
-Albert Einstein
Very good Albert, but next time show your work! C+
John Willingham recently 'found' a letter as
it would be written now if Albert were in school. KS #1 is used for the
school in a similiar manner to PS #X (Public School) in New York City.
Suffice it to say that KS does not always refer to Kansas. -TFTD
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Einstein,
I've been intending to write you since term's origin, but today
Albert broke the paraffin on the jelly, so to speak. He is a strange
child--moody, too self-assured, a little arrogant and pushy. But then
you and your other children must have noticed his anti-social behavior.
Alfred tells me he's got a "passion" for physics and math; but we as career
educators must insist on well-roundedness. A kid sitting through the
Lifestyles period and a visit from the school counselor and reading
numbers theory, hardly suitable for the kind of well-rounded, socially
adjusted, anti-elitist child we are trying--Oh, WOW, how we try!--to
produce at KS #1 Elementary. I think you folks better get your
act together, or we're dumping Alfred right into the school social
worker's lap. You will be asked to pay the heavy costs of professional
attention (actually, Mr. and Mrs. Einstein, we are all "professionals"
here at KS #1; some of us have done three professional workshops
this year, I'll have you know. You are not dealing with hired menials,
Mr. and Mrs. Einstein. Every last one of us is a certified member of the
N.E.A. and the MO-KAN E.A., and we can break you and your kid if you try
to cause trouble), and I'd advise you just to come get the kid right now
and take him home with you, lock, stock, and barrel, so to speak. Maybe
you could try this "home-teaching" by non-professional parents which
might keep Alfred off the streets but will certainly accomplish nothing
as far as nurture-learning is concerned.
Truly yours,
Mrs, Sally Dimwittie,
Teacher and
Professional Educator
Nothing is indestructible,
with the possible exception of discount priced fruitcakes.
-Greenfield, Ind., _Reporter_
Please break the laws of the physical
universe for my convenience.
Amen
-Emo Philips
The basic idea behind malls is that they are more convenient than
cities. Cities contain streets, which are dangerous and crowded and
difficult to park in. Malls, on the other hand, have parking lots,
which are also dangerous and crowded and difficult to park in, but --
here is the big difference -- in mall parking lots, THERE ARE NO
RULES. You're allowed to do anything. You can drive as fast as you
want in any direction you want. I was once driving in a mall parking
lot when my car was struck by a pickup truck being driven backward by a
squat man with a tattoo that said "Charlie" on his forearm, who got out
and explained to me, in great detail, why the accident was my fault,
his reasoning being that he was violent and muscular, whereas I was
neither. This kind of reasoning is legally valid in mall parking
lots.
-- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide"
If you don't know what your program is supposed to do,
you'd better not start writing it.
-Dijkstra's Prescription for Programming Inertia
What would I have done differently in my 20s and 30s
if I had known then what I know now? For one thing,
I would have laughed more; seen more Laurel and Hardy movies.
And I would have grieved less. I would have understood
earlier that not all losses are permanent and that some
things lost were not worth keeping.
I would have taken more time to note the changing seasons.
("Can you believe it?" an elderly friend asked me one spring day.
"Can you believe that even if I live to be a hundred, I will
see all this only 100 times?")
I would have been more daring. Emotionally daring, that is;
in the spirit of Eudora Welty's observation that
"all serious daring starts from within."
I would have understood sooner how profoundly satisfying
the ordinary transactions of daily life can be:
the perfect cup of morning coffee; the son shouting down
"good night!" from his room; the ginger-colored cat
caught napping in a triangle of sunlight.
-Alice Steinbach, Baltimore _Sun_
"The Right Honorable Gentleman
is indebted to his memory for his jests
and to his imagination for his facts."
-Sheridan
There is an Indian belief that everyone
is a house of four rooms: a physical, a
mental, an emotional and a spiritual room.
Most of us tend to live in one room most
of the time, but unless we go into every
room every day, even if only to keep it
aired, we are not complete.
-Rumer Godden
_House of Four rooms_ (Morrow)
How did they measure hail before the golf ball was invented?
-_Changing Times, The Kiplinger Magazine_
The only difference between a used car salesman
and a computer salesman is:
The used car salesman KNOWS he's lying.
-William L. (Bill) Chase
There's no thrill in easy sailing when the skies are clear and blue,
there's no joy in merely doing things which any one can do.
But there is some satisfaction that is mighty sweet to take,
when you reach a destination that you thought you'd never make.
-Spirella
Math and alcohol don't mix-
Please don't drink and derive.
-Anon
Qui culpae ignoscit uni suadet pluribus.
Pardon one offence and you encourage many.
-Publilius Syrus,
Sententiae No 587
c. 43 B.C.
Anti-Anthropomorphists of the world unite!
We have nothing to lose but Mr. Dignity.
Everyone should be quick to listen,
slow to speak and slow to become angry.
-James
The road to wisdom? Well, it's plain
and simple to express:
Err
and err
and err again
but less
and less
and less.
The curtains are drawn-
but the rest of the furniture is real.
A ship in harbor is safe--
but that is not what ships are for.
-John A. Shedd
Although botanically speaking a fruit, in 1893 the U.S. Supreme Court
unanimously ruled that tomatoes are a vegetable (and thus taxable under
the Tariff Act of 1883) because of the way they are usually served.
ref: Smithsonian, August, 1990.
"Welcome to the Psychiatric Hotline."
If you are obsessive-compulsive, please press 1 repeatedly.
If you are codependent, please ask someone to press 2.
If you have multiple personalities, please press 3, 4, 5 and 6.
If you are paranoid-delusional, we know who you are and what you want. Just
stay on the line so we can trace the call.
If you are schizophrenic, listen carefully and a little voice will tell you
which number to press.
If you are manic-depressive, it doesn't matter which number you press. No
one will answer.
Moderation in temper is always a virture;
but moderation in principle is always a vice.
-Thomas Paine
Why did you bring that book that I
didn't want to be read to out of up for?
Rules for Academic Deans:
(1) HIDE!!!!
(2) If they find you, LIE!!!!
-- Father Damian C. Fandal
"I can remember when a good politician had to be 75 percent ability and
25 percent actor, but I can well see the day when the reverse could be
true."
-Harry Truman
If this (Superbowl) is the ultimate game,
why are they playing it again next year?
-Duane Thomas
1972 Superbowl VI
Poor little Willie was a chemist.
He isn't a chemist anymore.
For what he thought was H O
2
Was H SO .
2 4
Don't mess with anybody who can make a lot
more trouble for you than you can make for them.
Did you ever notice that
"two plus eleven" and "one plus twelve"
not only give the same result but use the same letters?
-DrPhil
Life is like a metaphor.....
I've been rich and I've been poor;
rich is better.
-Sophie Tucker
Rule of Failure:
If at first you don't succeed,
destroy all evidence that you tried.
TFTD sez:
If the featured item on the Kid's Menu is Prime Rib-
You may want to find a less expensive place to do lunch.
Freedom is the right to be wrong,
not the right to do wrong.
-John Diefenbaker
Unnamed Law:
If it happens, it must be possible.
Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and
proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone
gets busy on the proof.
-Galbraith's Law
"Delores breezed along the surface of her life like a flat stone forever
skipping along smooth water, rippling reality sporadically but oblivious to
it consistently, until she finally lost momentum, sank, and due to an over-
dose of fluoride as a child which caused her to suffer from chronic apathy,
doomed herself to lie forever on the floor of her life as useless as an
appendix and as lonely as a five-hundred pound barbell in a steroid-free
fitness center." -- Winning sentence, 1990 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest.
----------------------------------------------------------
Source Comment: The contest is actually for the 'best' first sentence
of a novel. It comes from the writings of Lord Bulwer-Lytton who
wrote the classic line, 'It was a dark and stormy night;' so beloved
of Snoopy in the Peanuts comic strip.
The actual first line from _Paul Clifford_ is as follows:
It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents --except at
occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind
which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies),
rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame
of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.
The spirit, the will to win, and the will to excel are the things that
endure. These qualities are so much more important than the events
that occur.
-Vince Lombardi
"It's 9:59", said Tom pretentiously.
Most of us miss out on life's big prizes. The Pulitzer. The Nobel. Oscars.
Tonys. Emmys. But we're all eligible for life's small pleasures. A pat on
the back. A kiss behind the ear. A four-pound bass. A full moon. An empty
parking space. A crackling fire. A great meal. A glorious sunset. Hot
soup. Cold beer. Don't fret about copping life's grand awards. Enjoy its
tiny delights. There are plenty for all of us.
published in the Wall Street Journal
by United Technologies Corp.
Limerick Series
There was a yound lady from Kew
Whose limericks end at line two
There was a young man from Verdun
And the third limerick in the series is as follows:
George Washington was first in war, first in peace --
and the first to have his birthday juggled to make a long weekend.
-Ashley Cooper
The difference between theory and practice in practice is
greater than the difference between theory and practice in theory.
Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not;
nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not;
unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is
full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are
omnipotent. The slogan "Press On" has solved and always will solve the
problems of the human race.
-Calvin Coolidge
(Silent Cal?)
It's not just the ups and downs that make life difficult; it's the jerks.
When walking through a melon patch,
don't adjust your sandals.
-Chinese proverb
Another version of the TFTD for today may be plainer:
Avoid suspicion: when walking through your
neighbor's melon patch, don't tie your shoe.
-Chinese proverb
If I could hit it on the head
it wouldn't be an estimate.
-Dr. Pete
Please consider immediately upon return from the grocery store opening
any new jar of peanut butter purchased on the trip and consuming at
least one teaspoon of the delicacy. This practice ensures that the
rest of the jar is fair game the next time you have left-overs!!!!!
You will be rewarded for your forethought and planning!!
-W.C.R.
Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at
different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.
-- Clive James
Finagle's Laws of Information:
1. The information you have is not what you want.
2. The information you want is not what you need.
3. The information you need is not what you can obtain.
4. The information you can obtain costs more than you want to pay!
Don't order the soup du jour. You never know
what it's going to be from one day to the next.
-Hugh Mulligan
Nothing with a 43 page user's manual is user friendly.
-Sally Forth
To err is human, to forgive is divine
to moo is bovine
to bleat is ovine
to oink is procine
to howl is lupine
to bark is canine
to purr is feline
this list is assinine.
Commandancy of the Alamo
Bejar, Fby 24th 1836--
TO THE PEOPLE OF TEXAS & ALL AMERICANS IN
THE WORLD
Fellow Citizens & Compatriots--
I am besieged, by a thousand or more of the
Mexicans under Santa Anna--I have sustained a continual
Bombardment & cannonade for 24 hours & have not lost a
man--The enemy has demanded a surrender at discretion,
otherwise the garrison are to be put to the sword, if the
fort is taken-- I have answered the demand with a cannon
shot, & our flag still waves proudly from the walls-- I
_shall never surrender or retreat. Then_ I call on you
in the name of Liberty, of patriotism & everything dear to
the American character, to come to our aid, with all
dispatch-- The enemy is receiving reinforcements daily
& will no doubt increase to three or four thousand in four
or five days. If this call is neglected, I am determined
to sustain myself as long as possible & die a soldier who
never forgets what is due to his own honor & that of his
country--
_Victory or Death._
_________________
_________________
William Barret Travis
Lt. Col. Comdt.
************************
(The Alamo fell on 6 March 1836.)
Bill Chase writes that he plans to be more assertive-
'that is, if it's OK with the group.'
It doesn't matter how good an eggs looks.
If it smells, there's something wrong.
Dieckhoff's Law
(According to the character Captain Muller in Jack Higgins'
_Night of the Fox_ speaking of 'old Dieckhoff, Chief of Detectives
in Hamburg'.)
Wouldn't it be nice if the
wattage of a car stereo could
not exceed the IQ of the driver?
Complete this sentence:
I never met a man I didn't like
a. to cheat.
b. at first.
c. to avoid.
d. better than you.
-Robert Byrne
These things I warmly wish for you --
Someone to love, some work to do,
A bit o' sun, a bit o' cheer,
And a guardian angel always near.
-Old Irish Greeting
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.
He hadn't time to pen a note.
He hadn't time to cast a vote.
He hadn't time to sing a song.
He hadn't time to right a wrong.
He hadn't time to love or give.
He hadn't time to really live.
From now on he'll have time on end
He died today, my 'busy' friend.
-Anon
When Jargons Colide - Computer vs Military
Estimated Unit Prices for ISD Items
A DIC A0_, MEC 8, with a customer DON and an SN with no ABF/CMDF record, or
a customer request without an SN, will process into the DHF with an
estimated prce as provided by code table ESTUNPRI.,
These transactions will appear on the "Processed Transactions not on
Transaction Register" listing (PCN-B-ALB-009) after each basic cycle.
It has been inferred that the estimated unit price in the DHF can be
corrected by processing a DIC AE_ with the same customer number, status
code B7, and the proper unit price. Unfortunately, this is not the case. ...
-_The Sails Beacon_
Military Procurement Bulletin c. 1970
Truth hurts-
not the searching after;
the running from!
-John Virgil
You must get involved to have an impact.
No one is impressed with the
won-loss record of the referee.
-John H. Holcomb
_The Militant Moderate_
(Rafter)
The Pepper and Salt Association wants to turn the
English language outside in, wants phrases changed
kaboodle and kit. People should listen to roll 'n'
rock, eat butter and bread, and travel fro and to.
Why? Because what this country needs is a sense of
wrong and right, fair play and justice, order and law.
There are cons and pros, but true believers will
consider it a matter of death and life, a swim or
sink proposition.
-Press Release
Pepper and Salt Association
Alabama, Birmingham
When you are in any contest,
you should work as if there were-
to the very last minute- a chance to lose it.
This is battle,
This is politics,
This is anything.
-Dwight D. Eisenhower
The animal performers [two dogs and a cat in the movie
'Homeward Bound II'] aren't the best we've seen lately,
either. They're not as polished as Amy the talking
gorilla in 'Congo,' but better than Elizabeth Berkley
in 'Showgirls.'
Colin Covert
(Minneapolis) Star Tribune
March 8, 1996
We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom
that is in it - and stop there; lest we be like the cat that
sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot
stove-lid again, and that is well; but also she will never sit
down on a cold one anymore.
-Mark Twain
If we were drowning in the ocean
and there was (sic) only one life preserver....
I'd miss you terribly and think of you often.
-Shoebox
Survey Request
I normally do not do surveys but the Committee to Investigate Printing Sabotage
(CIPS) has requested our assistance. They said, "The over 7,000 readers of
TFTD-L, the worldwide range of the group, and the well known fact that
TFTD-L people are of much higher than average intelligence make them
uniquely qualified to perform this survey."
This is the problem. During the printing process of some editions (and
printings) of dictionaries deliberate sabotage has taken place. In some
cases the word 'gullible' has been left out, in others it has been placed
slightly out of alphabetical order. Please perform the following
inspection. Check your dictionary and report back to dan.galvin@tamu.edu
using the following format.
TFTD-
I have checked my dictionary and it (does) (does not)
contain the word, 'gullible'. If it does contain 'gullible' the
word immediately before is __________________
and immediately after is ___________________. My edition is a
__________________________ published in ___________.
I know CIPS will appreciate your efforts. -TFTD
Quality is never an accident;
it is always the result of
high intention,
sincere effort,
intelligent direction and
skillful execution;
it represents
the wise choice of many alternatives.
-Willa A. Foster
First Law of Political Campaigns:
If there are twelve clowns in a ring,
you can jump in the middle and start
reciting Shakespeare, but to the audience,
you'll just be the thirteenth clown.
-Adam Walinsky
Men don't care what's on TV.
They only care what ELSE is on TV.
-Jerry Seinfeld
... I suppose it never hurts to be reminded
that none of us are that far away from larceny.
Actually, it's the people who make the most
righteous moral noises that I worry about the most.
-Kinsey Millhone
'H' is for Homicide
by Sue Grafton
If genius is one percent inspiration
and 99 percent perspiration, I sure
have been sharing elevators with a
with a lot of very bright people.
-Phil Corless Sig File
How did the scarecrow know
he didn't have a brain?
-Lance W. Bledsoe
Hold a tight rein over the three T's -
thought, temper, tongue-
and you will have few regrets.
-Anon
He said:
God made Adam first because He didn't want any 'suggestions'.
She said:
God made Adam first, then decided the product could be improved.
In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Mississippi has
shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. Therefore ... in the
Old Silurian Period the Mississippi River was upward of one million
three hundred thousand miles long ... seven hundred and forty-two years
from now the Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters long.
... There is something fascinating about science. One gets such
wholesome returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of
fact.
-- Mark Twain
Here's what I think about government:
it's always the same garbage;
only the flies change.
-Rubem Tobelem
Jeep Tour Guide
Tijuca Forest, Brazil
It wasn't raining when Noah built the ark.
-Howard Ruff
Knock-
Please don't
ring doorbell.
-Ivan Pavlov
Robert's Rule of Order
Don't spend your gross salary.
Remember that 'average' is simply
the best of the poorest and the
poorest of the best.
-Zingers
"Ubi non accusator, ibi non judex."
(Where there is no police, there is no speed limit.)
-- Roman Law, trans. Petr Beckmann (1971)
They also surf who only stand on waves.
If you have any understanding of government at all
you will not want us to get involved.
-Mayor of Santa Cruz, California
(at a City Council meeting)
when asked by the "Surfers" to do something
about the "Kayakers" who are
taking all of their "good waves."
If it's there and you can see it - it's real.
If it's not there and you can see it - it's virtual.
If it's there and you can't see it - it's transparent.
If it's not there and you can't see it - you erased it!
-Old IBM VM Statement
(Scott Hammer)
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
If you think the problem is bad now,
just wait until we've solved it.
-Kasspe
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 is no greater loan
than an sympathetic ear.
-Frank Tyger
Proposed shows for a new cable channel
targeting information systems professionals.
-From the Internet
This Old Mainframe - Host Bob Vila revamps a Univac and shows you how
you can turn an old PC into a functional doorstep or other
decorative object.
Name That Software - Contestants attempt to identify well-known
business programs by looking at the least number of lines of code.
My Three Suns - Neighbors wonder why Steve Douglas keeps three UNIX
based work-stations in a suburban neighborhood.
Wang Can Cook - Chef Charles Wang blends together software in an
incomprehensible manner from companies he's purchased. Studio
guests grudingly pay ever higher prices for his creations.
(TFTD's personal favorite)
Leave it to Spindler - The Spindler tries to earn money by selling
apples but finds he can't sell them for as much as he paid for
them; tries to make it up in volume. Ward, June and the Board of
Directors sigh.
WordPerfect Strangers - Larry decides that using groupware would be a
good way to meet women, but Balki's laser printer explodes ruining
any chances of connectivity.
Mayberry CPU - Andy discovers that his digital clock has more
intelligence than Goober. Aunt Bee debugs Floyd's electronic cash
register.
The Honeymooners - Ralph dreams up a way to hit it rich with a 3-D
word processor, but it turns out to be vaporware. Ed makes
millions creating "Norton's Utilities".
Mr. Rom's Neigborhood - Mr. Rom puts young ones to sleep by reading
selections from various IBM documentation.
Says Me Street - Muppet like forms of Bill Gates, Larry Ellison and
Scott McNealy show children how to work and play together on the
information highway. Large character known as Big BlueBird is a
favorite of the kids although no one really knows why.
Ninety-eight percent of the adults in this country
are decent, hardworking, honest Americans.
It's the other lousy two percent that get all the publicity.
But then, we elected them.
-Lily Tomlin
My uncle ordered popovers
from the restaurant's bill of fare.
And, when they were served,
he regarded them with a penetrating stare.
Then he spoke great Words of Wisdom
as he sat there on that chair:
"To eat these things," said my uncle,
"You must exercise great care.
You may swallow down what's solid,
BUT...you must spit out the air!"
And as you partake of the world's bill of fare,
that's darned good advice to follow.
Do a lot of spitting out the hot air.
And be careful what you swallow.
-Theodor Seuss Geisel (Dr. Seuss)
From a commencement address
So, what's with this guy Gideon, anyway?
And why can't he ever remember his Bible?
The Bible tells us to love our neighbors,
and also to love our enemies;
probably because they are generally the same people.
-G.K. Chesterton
A man who carries a cat by the tail
learns something he can learn in no other way.
-Mark Twain
Perfection is our goal.
Excellence will be tolerated.
-TQM Motto from the
International Association of
Business Communication
I was a peripheral visionary.
I could see the future,
but only way off to the side.
-Steven Wright
How much easier it is to be critical than to be correct.
-Benjamin Disraeli
These days, the wages of sin depend on
what kind of deal you make with the publisher.
-Ivern Ball in 'The Wall Street Journal'
The main thing is
to keep the main thing
the main thing.
-Mr. Henry Breckenridge
It it's a penny for your thoughts and you
put in your two cents worth, then
someone, somewhere is making a penny.
-Stephen Wright
A statesman who keeps his ear
permanently glued to the ground
will have neither elegance of posture
nor flexibility of movement.
-Abba Eban
What is a committee?
A group of the unwilling,
picked from the unfit,
to do the unnecessary.
-Richard Harkness,
The New York Times, 1960
The winds and waves are always
on the side of the ablest navigators.
-Edward Gibbon
All power corrupts, but we need electricity.
Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit.
We become just by doing just acts,
temperate by doing temperate acts,
brave by doing brave acts.
-Aristotle
I think animal testing is a terrible idea;
they get all nervous and give the wrong answers.
-A Bit of Fry and Laurie
If all our misfortunes were laid in one common heap,
whence everyone must take an equal portion,
most people would be content to take their own and depart.
-Socrates
How to Attend a Meeting (Part 2 of Many)
(Part 1 has not been distributed on TFTD-L yet.)
The first meeting ever was held back in the Mezzanine Era. In those
days, Man's job was to slay his prey and bring it home for Woman, who
had to figure out how to cook it. The problem was, Man was slow and
basically naked, whereas the prey had warm fur and could run like an
antelope. (In fact it was an antelope, only nobody knew this).
At last someone said, "Maybe if we just sat down and did some
brainstorming, we could come up with a better way to hunt our prey!" It
went extremely well, plus it was much warmer sitting in a circle, so
they agreed to meet again the next day, and the next.
But the women pointed out that, prey-wise, the men had not produced
anything, and the human race was pretty much starving. The men agreed
that was serious and said they would put it right near the top of their
"agenda". At this point, the women, who were primitive but not stupid,
started eating plants, and thus modern agriculture was born. It never
would have happened without meetings.
The modern business meeting, however, might better be compared with a
funeral, in the sense that you have a gathering of people who are
wearing uncomfortable clothing and would rather be somewhere else. The
major difference is that most funerals have a definite purpose. Also,
nothing is really ever buried in a meeting.
Just as iron rusts from disuse,
even so does inaction spoil the intellect.
-Leonardo da Vinci
When a doctor himself needs doctoring so that another doctor
doctors the doctor, does the doctor doing the doctoring doctor
the doctor the way the doctor being doctored wants to be doctored
or does the doctor doing the doctoring of the doctor being doctored
doctor as he wants to doctor?
-H.A.N.D (Have A Nice Day)
(http://www.bapp.com/hand/)
It is an all-too-human frailty to suppose
that a favorable wind will blow forever.
-Rick Bode, _First You Have
to Row a Little Boat_
Newlan's Truism:
An "acceptable" level of unemployment means that the government
economist to whom it is acceptable still has a job.
We usually see only the things we are looking for-
so much so that we sometimes see them where they are not.
-Eric Hoffer,
_The Passionate State of Mind_
The ability to speak several
languages is an asset,
but the ability to keep your
mouth shut in one is priceless.
-The Lion
The Top 17 Rejected Titles for the Movie "Twister"
17. "Totally Gone With The Wind"
16. "Lift and Separate"
15. "Boys on the Side -- Of My Barn"
14. "Summer Film So Full of Special Effects We Couldn't Fit in the Plot"
13. "The Weather Channel: The Movie"
12. "Schindler's Twist"
11. "Field of Debris"
10. "Dead Man Flying"
9. "I, Cumulus"
8. "One House Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"
7. "The Splintered Bridges of Madison County"
6. "Wizard of Oz II: The Search For Toto"
5. "Killer Genuine Draft"
4. "Four Weddings & A Funnel"
3. "Indiana Jones and the Trailer Park of Doom"
2. "A Funnel Thing Happened On The Way To The Farm"
and the Number 1 Rejected Title for the Movie "Twister..."
"Roofless in Seattle"
-From the Internet
(Most recently from Penny Pennington
who sent it to approximately half of the world!)
I always wondered why somebody doesn't do something about that.
Then I realized I was somebody.
-Lily Tomlin
If you can't stand solitude,.....
maybe you bore others, too.
-_The Lion_,
Lions Club International
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.
Some people suffer in silence
louder than others complain.
-_The Lion_,
Lions Club International
We passed only one pig farm.
They smell about the same in Indiana
as they do in Illinois.
-Larry Potter, Sr., Day 33 log
of crosscountry bike ride
The reasonable man accomodates himself to the ways of the world.
The unreasonable man attempts to get the world
to accomodate itself to his ways.
Progress depends on unreasonable men.
-G. B. Shaw
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.
Bureaucrats cut red tape -- lengthwise.
Always remember there are certain people
who set their watches by your clock.
-Anon
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.
Hofstadter's Law:
It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take
Hofstadter's Law into account.
You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a
reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating
the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for
independence.
-- Charles A. Beard
While passing through St. Mary's, MO we rode our bicycles past a monument
with the following inscription:
Happy are those who dream dreams
and are ready
to pay the price to make them come true.
-Monument, St. Marys, MD
As reported by Larry Potter, Sr. in
'Day 44 Log, Crosscountry Bike Ride'
I received the following interrogation with respect to the TFTD for 2Jul96.
>Was it St. Mary's, MISSOURI (as in first line), or St. Mary's, MARYLAND (as
>in antepenultimate line)?
Due to an unfortunate juxtaposition of circumstances the first line
contains the incorrect letter string 'MO' instead of 'MD'. Mr. Potter was
within a 1/2 day of finishing his ride in Maryland. Now my high school
football coach and algebra teacher would have said, 'I just put that
mistake on the board to see if you were paying attention.' However since
the request for information was so elegant I really must reply, "c'est plus
qu'un crime, c'est une faute."
While passing through St. Mary's, MD we rode our bicycles past a monument
with the following inscription:
Happy are those who dream dreams
and are ready
to pay the price to make them come true.
-Monument, St. Marys, MD
As reported by Larry Potter, Sr. in
'Day 44 Log, Cross-country Bike Ride'
(And I am still not sure if it is St. Mary's or St. Marys. An old road
atlas that I consulted has it St. Marys so I will continue with having it
one way one place and another way in the other.)
What might have happened if government bureaucracy were as
entrenched then as it is now. Think about it.
----------------------------------------------------
The Court of King George III
London, England
July 10, 1776
Mr. Thomas Jefferson
c/o The Continental Congress
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Dear Mr. Jefferson:
We have read your "Declaration of Independence" with great interest.
Certainly, it represents a considerable undertaking, and many of your
statements do merit serious consideration. Unfortunately, the Declaration
as a whole fails to meet recently adopted specifications for proposals to
the Crown, so we must return the document to you for further refinement.
The questions which follow might assist you in your process of revision:
1. In your opening paragraph you use the phrase "the Laws of Nature and
Nature's God." What are these laws? In what way are they the criteria
on which you base your central arguments? Please document with
citations from the recent literature.
2. In the same paragraph you refer to the "opinions of mankind." Whose
polling data are you using? Without specific evidence, it seems to
us the "opinions of mankind" are a matter of opinion.
3. You hold certain truths to be "self-evident." Could you please
elaborate. If they are as evident as you claim then it should not be
difficult for you to locate the appropriate supporting statistics.
4. "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" seem to be the goals of
your proposal. These are not measurable goals. If you were to say that
"among these is the ability to sustain an average life expectancy in
six of the 13 colonies of at last 55 years, and to enable newspapers
in the colonies to print news without outside interference, and to
raise the average income of the colonists by 10 percent in the next
10 years," these could be measurable goals. Please clarify.
5. You state that "Whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of
these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it,
and to institute a new Government...." Have you weighed this assertion
against all the alternatives? What are the trade-off considerations?
6. Your description of the existing situation is quite extensive. Such a
long list of grievances should precede the statement of goals, not
follow it. Your problem statement needs improvement.
7. Your strategy for achieving your goal is not developed at all. You
state that the colonies "ought to be Free and Independent States," and
that they are "Absolved from All Allegiance to the British Crown." Who
or what must change to achieve this objective? In what way must they
change? What specific steps will you take to overcome the resistance?
How long will it take? We have found that a little foresight in these
areas helps to prevent careless errors later on. How cost-effective are
your strategies?
8. Who among the list of signatories will be responsible for implementing
your strategy? Who conceived it? Who provided the theoretical research?
Who will constitute the advisory committee? Please submit an organization
chart and vitas of the principal investigators.
9. You must include an evaluation design. We have been requiring this
since Queen Anne's War.
10. What impact will your problem have? Your failure to include any
assessment of this inspires little confidence in the long-range
prospects of your undertaking.
11. Please submit a PERT diagram, an activity chart, itemized budget, and
manpower utilization matrix.
We hope that these comments prove useful in revising your "Declaration of
Independence." We welcome the submission of your revised proposal. Our due
date for unsolicited proposals is July 31, 1776. Ten copies with original
signatures will be required.
Sincerely,
Management Analyst to the British Crown
Americans have always attached
particular value to the word "neighbor."
While the spirit of neighborliness
was important on the frontier
because neighbors were so few,
it is even more important now
because our neighbors are so many.
-Lady Bird Johnson,
_The President's Lady_
by Marie Smith (Random House)
PRILEP, Yugoslavia (AP) - Outside a small Macedonian village close to the
border between Greece and strife-torn Yugoslavia, a lone Catholic nun
keeps a quiet watch over a silent convent. She is the last caretaker of
the site of significant historical developments spanning more than 2,000
years.
When Sister Maria Cyrilla of the Order of the Perpetual Watch dies,
the convent of St. Elias will be closed by the Eastern Orthodox Patriarch
of Macedonia.
However, that isn't likely to happen soon as Sister Maria, 53, enjoys
excellent health. By her own estimate, she walks 10 miles daily about the
grounds of the convent, which once served as a base for the army of
Attila the Hun. In more ancient times, a Greek temple to Eros, the god
of love, occupied the hilltop site.
Historians say that Attila took over the old temple in 439 A.D.
and used it as a base for his marauding army. The Huns are believed to
have first collected and then destroyed a large gathering of Greek legal
writs at the site. It is believed that Attila wanted to study the Greek
legal system and had the writs and other documents brought to the temple.
Scholars differ on why he had the valuable documents destroyed - either
because he was barely literate and couldn't read them, or because they
provided evidence of democratic government that did not square with his
own notion of rule by an all-powerful tyrant.
When the Greek church took over the site in the 15th Century and the
convent was built, church leaders ordered the pagan statue of Eros
destroyed, so another ancient Greek treasure was lost. Today, there is
only the lone sister, watching over the old Hun base, amidst the strife
of war torn Yugoslavia, and when she goes, that will be it.
Thus, that's how it ends, with No Huns, no writs, no Eros, and nun
left on base.
1. Share everything.
2. Play fair.
3. Don't hit people.
4. Put things back where you found them.
5. Clean up your own mess.
6. Don't take things that aren't yours.
7. Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.
8. Wash your hands before you eat.
9. Flush.
10. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
11. Live a balanced life--learn some and think some and draw and paint
and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
12. Take a nap every afternoon.
13. When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic,
hold hands, and stick together.
14. Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup:
The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how
or why, but we are all like that.
15. Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed
in the Styrofoam cup--they all die. So do we.
16. And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you
learned--the biggest word of all--LOOK.
-Robert Fulghum
"All I Really Need to Know
I Learned in Kindergarten"
The clock that is five minutes fast
is seldom corrected at quitting time.
Everything I Need to Know, I Learned in Corporate America.
Part 1/3
1. Indecision is the key to flexibility.
2. You can't tell which way the train went by looking at the track.
3. There is absolutely no substitute for a genuine lack of preparation.
4. Happiness is merely the remission of pain.
5. Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
6. Sometimes too much to drink is not enough.
7. The facts, although interesting, are irrelevant.
8. The careful application of terror is also a form of communication.
9. Someone who thinks logically is a nice contrast to the real world.
10. Things are more like they are today than they ever were before.
Everything I Need to Know, I Learned in Corporate America.
Part 2/3
11. Anything worth fighting for is worth fighting dirty for.
12. Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.
13. Friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate.
14. I have seen the truth and it makes no sense.
15. Suicide is the most sincere form of self-criticism.
16. If you think there is good in everybody, you haven't met everybody.
17. All things being equal, fat people use more soap.
18. If you can smile when things go wrong, you have someone in mind to
blame.
19. One seventh of your life is spent on Monday.
20. By the time you make ends meet, they move the ends.
Notes:
Item 17. (Reworded in the interest of PC.)
For individuals of the same height who apply an equal amount of cleaning
product per square unit measure of skin, the one with the greatest amount
of epidermis will consume the most soap.
Item 19. (TFTD promised no editing of the items that come from EINTKILICA but
mathematical items do need to be addressed.)
Given a sufficently long life span, approximately one seventh of your
life is spent on Monday.
Or metaphysically speaking perhaps the amount of time that one spends on
'Mondays' is somewhat up to the individual.
Everything I Need to Know, I Learned in Corporate America.
Part 3/3
21. Not one shred of evidence supports the notion that life is serious.
22. The more you run over a dead cat, the flatter it gets.
23. There is always one more imbecile than you counted on.
24. This is as bad as it can get, but don't count on it.
25. Never wrestle a pig. You both get dirty and the pig likes it.
26. The trouble with life is, you're halfway through it before you
realize it's a do-it-yourself thing.
27. Youth and skill are no match for experience and treachery.
28. No amount of advance planning will ever replace dumb luck.
29. Anything you do can get you fired; this includes doing nothing.
30. Money can't buy happiness; it can, however, rent it.
31. Never pass a snow plow on the right.
We are here on earth to do good to others.......
What the others are here for, I do not know.
-W. H. Auden
The problem with trying to 'reinvent government' is this:
First you have to appoint a commission to study the problem.
The commission will then hire a staff.
The staff will hire assistants.
The assistants will ...
-Adapted from a Robert Orben quote concerning
'trying to halt the growth of bureaucracy'
When one door closes, another opens,
but we often look so long and
regretfully upon the closed door,
we do not see the ones which open for us.
-A.G. Bell
There are no physicists in the hottest parts of hell, because the
existence of a "hottest part" implies a temperature difference, and any
marginally competent physicist would immediately use this to run a heat
engine and make some other part of hell comfortably cool. This is
obviously impossible.
-- Richard Davisson
A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong
gives it a superficial appearance of being right.
-Thomas Paine
Every passing hour brings the Solar System
forty-three thousand miles closer to the
Globular Cluster M13 in Hercules - and
still there are some misfits who insist
that there is no such thing as progress.
-Ransom L. Ferm
Mason to Dixon: 'You gotta draw the line someplace.'
It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly
in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency.
This makes me forever ineligible for public office.
-H.L.Mencken
The most important thing in communication
is to hear what isn't being said.
-Peter F. Drucker
Pittsburgh Driver's Test
(7) The car directly in front of you has a flashing right tail light
but a steady left tail light. This means
(a) one of the tail lights is broken; you should blow your horn
to call the problem to the driver's attention.
(b) the driver is signaling a right turn.
(c) the driver is signaling a left turn.
(d) the driver is from out of town.
The correct answer is (d). Tail lights are used in some foreign
countries to signal turns.
Don't LOOK at anything in a physics lab.
Don't TASTE anything in a chemistry lab.
Don't SMELL anything in a biology lab.
Don't TOUCH anything in a medical lab.
and, most importantly,
Don't LISTEN to anything in a philosophy department.
-Bill Lye
If language is not correct, then what is said is not what is meant;
if what is said is not what is meant, then what must be done remains
undone; if this remains undone, morals and art will deteriorate; if
justice goes astray, the people will stand about in helpless confusion.
Hence there must be no arbitrariness in what is said. This matters
above everything.
-Confucius
If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; but if you
really make them think they'll hate you.
Mophobia, n.: Fear of being verbally abused by a Missourian!
"For three days after death hair and fingernails continue to grow but
phone calls taper off."
-- Johnny Carson
Applicants must also have extensive knowledge of UNIX,
although they should have sufficiently good programming
taste to not consider this an achievement.
-MIT job ad
A man is a person who, if a woman says,
"Never mind, I'll do it myself," lets her.
A woman is a person who, if she says to a man,
"Never mind, I'll do it myself," and he lets her, gets mad.
A man is a person who, if a woman says to him,
"Never mind, I'll do it myself,"
and he lets her and she get mad, says,
"Now what are you mad about?".
A woman is a person who, if she says to a man,
"Never mind, I'll do it myself,"
and he lets her and she get mad, and he says,
"Now what are mad about?" says
"If you don't know I'm not going to tell you."
-Katherine S. Beamer
In the confrontation between
the stream and the rock,
the stream always wins--
not through strength but by perserverance.
-H. Jackson Brown
_A Father's Book of Wisdom_
Rutledge Hill
A half truth is a whole lie.
-Yiddish proverb
Dear Dr. Science,
In using a commercial software package, I recently got the following error
message "Attempting to use transgressed handle. Error 6 repeating error 6".
It kept this up until I turned the machine off. Are they trying to drive me
insane, or are they crazy?
------------------- Frank Zucker, PhD, Seattle, WA
Both. Anybody who'd purchase software over the counter is asking for
trouble. I won't use anything I haven't programmed myself, usually in a
highly sophisticated language called "Psychospeak 5.2", which to the unaided
eye appears to be an endless string of random numbers. This is because it
actually is an endless string of random numbers, punctuated by phone numbers
of friends and relatives, just to introduce some order into chaos. It's a
spreadsheet, it's a word processing program, it's a fax/modem, depending on
my state of mind while operating it. I'd send you a copy, but it's copy
protected, and besides, unless you have 256 megabytes of RAM and one heck of
a hard drive, your computer would probably blow up.
-----------------------------
-Ask Dr. Science
http://www.drscience.com
Copyright 1996
Duck's Breath Mystery Theatre
All rights reserved.
Q: How many mathematicians does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: One. He gives it to six Californians, thereby reducing the problem
to the earlier joke.
When the outcome of a meeting
is to have another meeting,
it has been a lousy meeting.
-Herbert Clark Hoover
We asked the Secret Service if we could
get up on the roofs and they said,
'Sure but we'll probably shoot you off.'
That cooled our enthusiasm considerably.
-James Giles
Network Designer
1988 Democratic National Convention
Why not move the political conventions to
one of the winter months so all that hot air
won't go to waste?
-Anon
It isn't what you know that counts,
it's what you think of in time.
Being in politics is like being a football coach.
You have to be smart enough to understand the game
and dumb enough to think it's important.
-Senator Eugene McCarthy
Q: Why do ducks have flat feet?
A: To stamp out forest fires.
Q: Why do elephants have flat feet?
A: To stamp out flaming ducks.
I would like to be allowed to admire
a man's opinion as I would his dog -
without being expected to take it home with me.
-Frank A. Clark
Love anything and your heart will be wrung
and possibly broken. If you want to make
sure of keeping it intact you must give it
to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it
carefully round with hobbies and little
luxuries; avoid all entanglements.
Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of
your selfishness. But in that casket-
safe, dark, motionless, airless-
it will change. It will not be broken;
it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.
To love is to be vulnerable.
-C.S. Lewis
_The Four Loves_,
(Fount Paperbacks)
A perfect summer day is
when the sun is shining,
the breeze is blowing,
the birds are singing,
and the lawn mower is broken.
-James Dent
We make a mistake assessing an election campaign
as if we were judging a prize fight- focusing
only on the skills of the contestants and
what is happening in the ring.
An election more resembles the process at
an art auction. To determine whether
bidders will prefer a Rembrandt or a Picasso,
you need to factor in the taste of the customers-
their beliefs, their values. Indeed, the value
of a painting- or the quality of a candidate-
lies in the beholder.
-Alan Baron
My foreman thinks I have more ability than I think I have.
So I consistently do better work than I thought I could do.
-Letter in GM Employee Contest
_My Job and Why I Like It_
Wouldn't life be much simpler, if people
just changed color along with their mood?
-Penny Thoughts
My doctor told me to stop
having intimate dinners for four.
Unless there are three other people.
-Orson Welles
It's amazing how when I'm out of sorts
everyone around me turns into an idiot.
-Penny's Thought
It takes a minute to write a safety rule.
It takes an hour to hold a meeting.
It takes a week to develop a safety program.
It takes a month to put it into operation.
It takes a year to win a safety award.
It takes a lifetime to train a safe worker.
It takes one second to destroy it all with one accident.
-Penny's Thought
My job is not all that difficult,
but I do have to know the entire alphabet.
-Vanna White
Suspicions Confirmed
(Lawyers and Work)
This is an early retirement for economic reasons,
and he is going to spend the next few months taking it easy.
After that he may or may not go back to work or he may practice law.
-James Frances, Chairman Texas Public Safety Commission
speaking of COL James Wilson, retiring Director of the
Texas Department of Public Safety
"I don't have any solution but I certainly admire the problem."
-- Ashleigh Brilliant
To err is human--
and to blame on a computer is even more so.
-Orben
There is no expedient to which a man will not
resort to avoid the real labor of thinking.
-Sir Joshua Reynolds
This sentance has three erors.
..., the wise man should always follow the roads that have been
trodden by the great, and imitate those who have most excelled,
so that if he cannot reach their perfection, he may at least
acquire something of its savour. Acting in this like the skilful
archer, who seeing that the object he would hit is distant, and
knowing the range of his bow, takes aim much above the destined
mark; not designing that his arrow should stike so high, but that
flying high it may alight at the point intended.
-The Prince
Niccolo Machiavelli
"Playing tight end",
Tom was told soberly.
Sometimes the burning questions of life _are_ answered.
Answer provided by Fred (just call me winner at the Alamo) Colunga.
Original question follows:
"Where is my wide receiver?",
Tom asked endlessly.
The was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that
a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real
and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and
could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did,
he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr
would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he
was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't
have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was
moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22,
and let out a respectful whistle.
-Joeseph Heller
Too many of us are like wheelbarrows--
useful only when pushed and easily upset.
-Anon
It doesn't matter
if you win or lose,...
until you lose.
-Angie Papadakis
The problem with doing something right the first
time is that no one knows how difficult it was.
Anon
It isn't necessary to be
rich and famous to be happy....
It's only necessary to be rich.
-Alan Alda
Nothing is so useless as a general maxim.
-Thomas Macaulay
Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing.
-- Wernher von Braun
All extremists should be taken out and shot.
Dear Dr. Science,
When I go to the airport, I see the carousel at the baggage claim area. Why
can't people ride on the carousel and go around until they arrive at their
baggage?
------------------- Bob Pease, Pacifica, CA
That was the original intention of the carousel designers. But then someone
at the FAA thought passengers might have so much fun that air travel itself
would pale in comparison. People would begin sneaking into airports just
to ride the luggage carousel. Only in Belgium and Uruguay do airports
encourage passengers to use the carousel for its intended purpose. Today's
reminder of the luggage carousel's circus origin is the alarm that sounds
when it starts up and the substitution of the white courtesy telephone for
the brass ring.
-------------------------------
You're reading the Dr. Science Question of the day. Send questions for Dr.
Science to DrScience@Ducksbreath.com and visit him in his virtual laboratory
at http://www.drscience.com.
All Dr. Science material Copyright 1996 Duck's Breath Mystery Theatre. All
rights reserved. The Ask Dr. Science's maillist and web site are sponsored by
the fine folks at Internet Direct. Visit them at http://www.gosite.com.
Do not anticipate trouble,
or worry about what may never happen.
Keep in the sunlight.
-Benjamin Franklin
Stay out of the sunlight
lest it give you skin cancer....
-Anonymous 1990's
dermatologist
Noise pollution is a relative thing.
In a city, it's a jet plane taking off.
In a monastery, it's a pen that scratches.
-Robert Orben
We are confronted with
insurmountable opportunities.
-Walt Kelly, "Pogo"
People with tact have less to retract.
-Arnold H. Glasow
Of course, there must be subtleties.
Just make sure you make them obvious.
-Billy Wilder
I have learned to use
the word _impossible_
with the greatest caution.
-Wernher von Braun
Never eat more than you can lift.
-- Miss Piggy
Nothing can keep an argument going like two persons
who aren't sure what they're arguing about.
-O.A. Battista
I don't have to take this abuse from you --
I've got hundreds of people waiting to abuse me.
-Bill Murray, "Ghostbusters"
If I was able to fix it,
it must have been broke!
-Anon
The MOST PLEASANT and useful persons
are those who leave some of the problems
of the universe for God to worry about.
-Don Marquis,
_The Almost Perfect State_
Technology is so helpful and powerful ....
until someone trips over the electrical cord.
-Travis Collins
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.
I never, ever say "I can't" about anything.
I might say "I don't have the authority to
make that decision" or "Building A is too
heavy for me to lift" or "I will need
training before I pilot that space shuttle."
-Mike Huber on Techwr-L
When cryptography is outlawed,
bayl bhgynjf jvyy unir cevinpl.
-Floating Around the Internet
Fortune's Fictitious Country Song Title of the Week:
"How Can I Miss You if You Won't Go Away?"
Fortune's Fictitious Country Song Title of the Week:
"How Can I Miss You if You Won't Go Away?"
Several people pointed out that this isn't a _Fictitious_ title but a real one.
Here is one response:
Yo Dan,
The first Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks record on Epic featured a
song called "How Can I Miss You When You Won't Go Away?" I used
to do it with my folk-rock band in college. Here's the chorus:
>>
How can I miss you when you won't go away?
I keep tellin' you, day after day.
But you don't listen, no you only stay and stay. Hey...
How can I miss you when you won't go away?
<<
Paul
----------------------------------------------------------
Paul Corr, Webmaster
http://www.allegheny.edu/
Item 1. TFTD believes he has the tune to it in his head. However you are very
lucky in that TFTD _isn't_ going to sing it and post on real-audio.
Item 2. To the person who was a little 'snippy' about the mistake I would
like to quote the following:
An issue of the TCU Band's "Froghorn" newsletter once included this
disclaimer:
"You may have noticed some mistakes in this issue. This is because
we try to have something for everyone, and some people are always
looking for mistakes."
When cryptography is outlawed,
bayl bhgynjf jvyy unir cevinpl.
-Floating Around the Internet
*******
Several people have asked what is the meaning of the second line. I checked it
to my satisfaction before sending it out to be sure that what I sent was up
to the publishing standards of TFTD. A partial 'step by step' is given as
Solution 1. Solution 2 was sent in by one of the interested readers of TFTD who
obviously wanted to help TFTD not get the big head.
Solution 1.
1. Had to assume that if it were a real cipher it had to be a simple one
because of the short length.
2. The 'sentence' had the familiar form of
If ________ is outlawed,
only _______ will have ______.
3. The first, third and fourth words (bayl jvyy unir) have the right
letter lengths.
4. only will have
|||| |||| |||| gives b->o, a->n, y->l, j->w, v->i, u->h, n->a, i->v,
bayl jvyy unir and r->e The repeating y's matching indicate that
the value for a symbol remains the same.
5. Substituing the letters determined from the above gives us:
only o _ _ law _ will have _ _ i v a _ _
bayl bhgynjf jvyy unir cevinpl
6. Noting that a-n, n-a, and v-i, i-v we can assume that all pairs are
reversable and thus
only ou _ law _ will have _ ri v a _ y
bayl bhgynjf jvyy unir cevinpl
7. Or, without even needing to buy a vowel,
only outlaws will have privacy.
8. The c p pair continue to follow the pattern so will assume this is the
solution to the puzzle.
Solution #2. According to Hoyle
Re. today's thought:
> When cryptography is outlawed,
> bayl bhgynjf jvyy unir cevinpl.
>
> -Floating Around the Internet
>
Cute enough undecoded, but I wonder how many of your loyal
subscribers realize that if you run the scrambled line through the
common Internet en/de-coder rot13, you get:
only outlaws will have privacy.
(that is the code that pairs letters as follows: abcdefghijklm
|||||||||||||
nopqrstuvwxyz
--
Pete Hoyle - William & Mary Technology Services Computing Support
sphoyl@facstaff.wm.edu
Obviously, where art has it over life is in the matter of editing.
Life can be seen to suffer from a drastic lack of editing. It stops
too quick, or else it goes on too long. Worse, its pacing is erratic.
Some chapters are little more than a few sentences in length, while
others stretch into volumes. Life, for all its raw talent, has little
sense of structure. It creates amazing textures, but it can't be counted
on for snappy beginnings or good endings either. Indeed, in many cases no
ending is provided at all.
-Larry McMurtry
_Film Flam_
According to the latest official figures,
43.28% of all statistics are totally useless.
-Mike Waters
Parenting is like wallpapering-
when you know how you are finished!
-Mullens
A rumor without a leg to stand on
will get around some other way.
-John Tudor
I would like to take you seriously but
to do so would affront your intelligence.
-William F. Buckley, Jr.
Favorite shovel-
Don't heave loam without it.
-Marl Kalden
The next time you feel
the urge to procrastinate...
just put it off.
-_The Lion_,
Lions Club International
You can never bid too much at an auction.
-Joe Keefhaver
Executive Vice President
National Auctioneers Association
Brady's First Law of Problem Solving:
When confronted by a difficult problem, you can solve it more
easily by reducing it to the question, "How would the Lone
Ranger have handled this?"
The mind is never blank,
if it were, how would you know?
-Ed Foreman
TASSCC Conference July 94
Ft. Worth, TX
Treat the media as you would any other watchdog.
Stay calm,
be friendly,
let them sniff your hand and
never turn your back.
-Amy Sprinkles
Public Information Officer
City of Grand Prairie (TX)
"Two ballots please, I'm from Chicago."
-From the Henry Cate, III Life Collection
We will all be better citizens
when the voting records of our
Congressmen are followed as carefuly
as scores of pro-football games.
-Lou Erickson
"The student in question is performing minimally for his peer group and
is an emerging underachiever."
How come there's only one Monopolies Commission?
-Nigel Rees
A man who carries a cat by the tail
learns something he can learn in no other way.
-Mark Twain
Perfection is our goal.
Excellence will be tolerated.
-TQM Motto from the
International Association of
Business Communication
I was a peripheral visionary.
I could see the future,
but only way off to the side.
-Steven Wright
The Bible tells us to love our neighbors,
and also to love our enemies;
probably because they are generally the same people.
-G.K. Chesterton
Gesta Romanorum.
... mundus suis servitoribus reddit mercedem
(See how the world its veterans rewards.)
-Alexander Pope: Moral Essays,
epistle 1, line 243.
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.
-- Steve Rubenstein
How the end of the world will be reported:
USA Today:
WE'RE DEAD
The Wall Street Journal:
DOW JONES PLUMMETS AS WORLD ENDS
National Enquirer:
O.J. AND NICOLE, TOGETHER AGAIN
Playboy:
GIRLS OF THE APOCALYPSE
Microsoft Systems Journal:
APPLE LOSES MARKET SHARE
Victoria's Secret Catalog:
OUR FINAL SALE
Sports Illustrated:
GAME OVER
Wired:
THE LAST NEW THING
Rolling Stone:
THE GRATEFUL DEAD REUNION TOUR
Readers Digest:
'BYE
Discover Magazine:
HOW WILL THE EXTINCTION OF ALL LIFE AS WE KNOW IT
AFFECT THE WAY WE VIEW THE COSMOS?
TV Guide:
DEATH AND DAMNATION: NIELSON RATINGS SOAR!
Lady's Home Journal:
LOSE 10 LBS BY JUDGEMENT DAY WITH OUR NEW "ARMAGEDDON" DIET!
America Online:
SYSTEM TEMPORARILY DOWN. TRY CALLING BACK IN 15 MINUTES.
Inc. magazine:
TEN WAYS YOU CAN PROFIT FROM THE APOCALYPSE
Microsoft's Web Site:
IF YOU DIDN'T EXPERIENCE THE RAPTURE,
DOWNLOAD SOFTWARE PATCH RAPT777.EXE.
Sun:
ARMAGEDDON TOLERANT SOFTWARE NOW AVAILABLE!
-Floating Around the Internet
Penny Pennington
Seek not every quality in one individual.
-Confucius
Sweep first before your own door,
before you sweep the doorsteps of your neighbors.
When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President. Now
I'm beginning to believe it.
-- Clarence Darrow
Dear Dr. Science,
Since being elected to public office, I've found that I enjoy running.
Problem is, little rocks find their way into my running shoes. I never had
this problem before I got involved in politics. What can I do to stop this
from happening?
------------------- Tom DeWolfe, Bend, OR
Appoint a committee to spend a year studying the problem, then an hire an
outside consultant to spend another year reviewing the committee's findings.
Take a year or more to study the consultant's review of the committee's
work, then put the whole matter on the back burner while you devote all your
energies to getting re-elected. Once you're re-elected, this whole gravel in
the running shoe thing will be old business and neither you nor your
constituents will have the slightest interest in dredging up something they
were bored by four years earlier. If you're going to take up running, wear
huaraches, like the Tarahumara of Northwestern Mexico. The pebbles slip
right out while you run and, since they're made out of old tires, they last
forever!
-------------------------------
You're reading the Dr. Science Question of the day. Send questions for Dr.
Science to DrScience@drscience.com and visit him in his virtual laboratory
at http://www.drscience.com.
All Dr. Science material Copyright 1996 Duck's Breath Mystery Theatre. All
rights reserved.
It is well to remember that the entire population
of the universe, with one trifling exception,
is composed of others.
-John Andrew Holme
Spellbound
by Janet Minor
I have a spelling checker,
It came with my PC;
It plainly marks four my revue
Mistakes I cannot sea.
I've run this poem threw it,
I'm sure your pleased too no,
Its letter perfect in it's weigh,
My checker tolled me sew.
Latest lingo (webster is strongly considering adding these to his book).
Dilberted
To be exploited and oppressed by your boss. Derived from the
experiences of Dilbert, the geek-in-hell comic strip character. "I've
been dilberted again. The old man revised the specs for the fourth
time this week."
Link Rot
The process by which links on a web page became as obsolete as
the sites they're connected to change location or die.
World Wide Wait
The real meaning of WWW.
CGI Joe
A hard-core CGI script programmer with all the social skills and
charisma of a plastic action figure.
Glazing
Corporate-speak for sleeping with your eyes open. A popular
pastime at conferences and early-morning meetings. "Didn't he
notice that half the room was glazing by the second session?"
404
Someone who's clueless. From the World Wide Web message
"404, URL Not Found," meaning that the document you've tried
to access can't be located. "Don't bother asking him...he's 404,
man."
Egosurfing
Scanning the net, databases, print media, or research papers
looking for the mention of your name.
Cobweb Site
A World Wide Web Site that hasn't been updated for a long time.
A dead web page.
Keyboard Plaque
The disgusting buildup of dirt and crud found on computer
keyboards. "Are there any other terminals I can use? This one has
a bad case of keyboard plaque."
Career-Limiting Move (CLM)
Used among microserfs to describe an ill-advised activity.
Trashing your boss while he or she is within earshot is a serious
CLM.
Elvis Year
The peak year of something's popularity. "Barney the dinosaur's
Elvis year was 1993."
Alpha Geek
The most knowledgable, technically proficient person in an office
or work group. "Ask Larry, he's the alpha geek around here."
Tourists
People who are taking training classes just to get a vacation from
their jobs. "We had about three serious students in the class; the
rest were tourists."
Gray Matter
Older, experienced business people hired by young entrpreneurial
firms looking to appear more reputable and established.
Beepilepsy
The brief siezure people sometimes suffer when their beepers go
off, especially in vibrator mode. Characterized by physical
spasms, goofy facial expressions, and stopping speech in
mid-sentence.
-From the Internet
Were we to be directed from Washington
when to sow and when to reap
we should soon want bread.
-Thomas Jefferson
We should be thankful for the good things we have
and, also, for the bad things we don't have.
-Anon
It's not my place
To run the train
The whistle I can't blow
It's not my place
To say how far
The train's allowed to go
It's not my place
To shoot off steam
Nor even clang the bell
But let the train once
Jump the track....
Then see who catches hell.
-On the wall of the Stationmaster's Office,
Grand Central Terminal
(Also seen in Korea circa 1965 at
an especially appropriate moment.)
7 Habits of Ineffective Executives
The second rate executive...
1. Believes that forming a committee is the same thing
as making a decision.
2. Considers talking to the limo driver to be "getting in
touch with the real world."
3. Thinks that bragging about how much money he or
she makes will increase your respect for him or her.
4. Believes that saying, "It's your decision, but if it were
up to me..." is delegating authority.
5. Thinks that repeatedly reminding you how lucky you
are will make you appreciate your job.
6. Believes that hanging up a sign about employee morale
will improve morale.
7. Sees the logic of repeatedly interrupting your work to
make sure you are working.
-Dale Dauten, columnist,
The Chicago Tribune, 4/24/95.
(Most recently in Archie Kregear's QOTD)
Mohandas K. Gandhi often changed his mind publicly. An aide once asked
him how he could so freely contradict this week what he had said just
last week. The great man replied that it was because this week he knew
better.
Sometimes what you forget
doesn't bother you as much
as what you remember.
-Yoonja Hwang
The human race is faced with a cruel choice:
work or daytime television.
-Unknown
A Parable for Our Times
Well I am going to tell a story today. It is a story told by a man
named Tony Compolo. Tony is a Christian, a sociologist, a college
professor and a gifted speaker, so he gets asked to go and give
presentations all over the place. One time he was called from his
east coast home to go to Honolulu. Now if you have ever flown from
the East coast to Honolulu you know what happens to your time clock.
He was in the hotel the first night and he woke up, wide awake, a
little bit before 3 in the morning. His body said "It is 9 o'clock,
time for breakfast," so he got dressed and went downstairs. Nothing
was open so he went outside from the hotel and wandered around a bit
until he found a place, a diner, a real greasy spoon -- one of those
places where you are afraid to open the menu because you're not sure
what might crawl out? And there he was in that place, no one else was
there. He ordered a cup of coffee, and then, in a weak moment, he also
ordered a donut. And then this rather obese, unkempt, unshaven man --
named Harry -- that was working behind the counter came out, wiped his
hands on his dirty apron, reached into the jar and gave Tony a donut.
Tony wished Harry had given it to him in a different way, and yet
there he was. So he was sitting back, musing to himself and drinking
his coffee and eating his donut when the door suddenly burst open and
8 or 9 rather boisterous prostitutes came in.
Now Tony was even more uncomfortable. They sat down at the counter
next to him, because there wasn't any other place, and he drank his
coffee, tried to look inconspicuous, and listened to the conversation.
And one of the women said, "Tomorrow is my birthday, I'll be 39."
And her friend said, "So what do you want from me? I suppose you want
a party or something, maybe you want me to bake you a cake?" And this
woman, whom he later found was named Agnes, said, "Why are you so mean?
I don't want anything from you. Why would I want anything from you?
I've never had a birthday party, and no one has ever baked me a cake,
and why would I want anything from you? Be quiet." Right then Tony got
an inspiration. Soon the ladies left and he said to Harry, behind the
counter, "Say do they come in here every night?" and he said, "Yes they
do." And he said, "This one next to me?" and Harry said, "You mean Agnes?"
and Tony said, "Yes, that's the one, does she come in every night?"
And Harry said, "Same time just like clock work every night she is here."
So Tony said, "What about if we throw a party for her, a birthday party?
Tomorrow's her birthday." Harry began to smile a little bit and called
to his wife who was back in the kitchen cooking, and said, "Hey, this
crazy guy out here wants to have a birthday party for Agnes." And they
said what a wonderful idea!
So the plans were made and everything was set for the party. The next
night Tony came back to the same place, same time, and the place was
decorated with crepe paper, and the sign on the wall said, "Happy
Birthday Agnes." It was cleaned up and it looked like a different
place. They sat down and waited and pretty soon people began to
trickle in. The word had gotten out on the street, prostitutes from
all over Honolulu were filling up the place. The place was full and
at about the appointed time Agnes and her friends came bursting
through the door and they said "Happy Birthday, Agnes." Her knees
buckled a bit, her friends caught her and she was stunned, speechless,
touched. They led her over to the counter and she sat down. They
said to her again "Happy Birthday," and Harry brought the cake out and
her mouth fell open and her eyes began to fill with tears. They put
the cake down in front of her, they sang happy birthday to her and
Harry said, "Blow the candles out so we can have some."
Agnes just stared at that cake. Finally they convinced her to blow
the candles out and Harry handed her a knife and told her to cut the>cake.
She looked at it and said, "Do I have to? let me wait a minute."
And Agnes looked at that cake, so lovingly, like it was the
most precious thing she had ever seen, a sacrament of love for her,
and she said, "Do I have to cut it?" And Harry said, "Well, no, I
suppose you don't have to cut it."
And then she said something even more strange. She said, "I would
like to keep it for awhile - I don't live far from here. Can I take
it home? I'll be right back." They looked at her with a puzzled look
on their faces and said, "Sure, you can take it." She picked the cake
up and Tony said she carried it like she was carrying the Holy Grail
in a sacred Cathedral and she walked out the door. There was silence,
stunned silence, and Tony said he did something on the spur of the
moment that he wondered about. He stood up and said, "What do you say
that we pray?"
Now what an improbable picture this is. A Christian sociologist
surrounded by every prostitute in Honolulu in a greasy spoon diner and
he says, let us pray. But he did. A simple prayer. He prayed for
Agnes that somehow she would meet Jesus, that somehow she would find
salvation and that God would be good to her, especially on her
birthday. He said Amen and the party resumed. Harry said to him,
"Hey, I didn't know you were a preacher." And Tony answered, "I'm not
a preacher, I'm a sociologist." And Harry said, "Well what kind of a
church do you come from anyway?" Tony, inspired by God's spirit,
said, "I guess I come from a church that throws birthday parties for
prostitutes at 3 o'clock in the morning." And Harry said, "No you
don't, there's no such church like that, cause if there was," he said,
"I would join it."
-This story is retyped from the Episcopal Voice, November 1994, the
newspaper of the Diocese of Olympia, in Western Washington. It was
included in the homily given by the Reverend Don Mackay, Rector of St.
John's, Kirkland, at our recent Diocesan Convention. Submitted by Lynn
Adam member of St. Paul's Seattle, ladams@fhcrc.org,
via Elliott Mitchell.
Speer's 1st Law of Proofreading:
The visibility of an error is inversely proportional to the
number of times you have looked at it.
Tussman's Law:
Nothing is as inevitable as a mistake whose time has come.
Todos tenemos que sonar,
y pobresito el que ya no
puede porque ya se
perdio para siempre.
-Don Carlos Ramon
All of us must dream,
and pitiable is he who can no
longer do so, because he has
been lost forever.
-Don Carlos Ramon
sonar- ~ over the n
perdio- accent over the o
Ramon- accent over the o
Procrastinators have the advantage
of working with the very latest data available.
-Tom Talley
Urgent: Famous Reindeer Terminated
The recent announcement that Donner and Blitzen have elected to take
the early reindeer retirement package has triggered a good deal of
concern about whether they will be replaced, and about other
restructuring decisions at the North Pole.
Streamlining is due to the North Pole's loss of dominance of the
season's gift distribution business. Home shopping channels and mail
order catalogues have diminished Santa's market share. He could not
sit idly by and permit further erosion of the profit picture.
The reindeer downsizing was made possible through the purchase of a
late model Japanese sled for the CEO's annual trip. Improved
productivity from Dasher and Dancer, who summered at the Harvard
Business School, is anticipated. Reduction in reindeer will also
lessen airborne environmental emissions for which the North Pole has
received unfavorable press.
I am pleased to inform you that Rudolph's role will not be disturbed.
Tradition still counts for something at the North Pole. Management
denies, in the strongest possible language, the earlier leak that
Rudolph's nose got that way, not from the cold, but from substance
abuse. Calling Rudolph "a lush who was into the sauce and never did
pull his share of the load" was an unfortunate comment, made by one of
Santa's helpers and taken out of context at a time of year when he is
known to be under executive stress.
As a further restructuring, today's global challenges require the
North Pole to continue to look for better, more competitive steps.
Effective immediately, the following economy measures are to take
place in the "Twelve Days of Christmas" subsidiary:
- The partridge will be retained, but the pear tree never turned out
to be the cash crop forecasted. It will be replaced by a plastic
hanging plant, providing considerable savings in maintenance;
- The two turtle doves represent a redundancy that is simply not cost
effective. In addition, their romance during working hours could not
be condoned. The positions are therefore eliminated;
- The three French hens will remain intact. After all, everyone loves
the French;
- The four calling birds were replaced by an automated voice mail
system, with a call waiting option. An analysis is underway to
determine who the birds have been calling, how often and how long
they talked;
- The five golden rings have been put on hold by the Board of
Directors. Maintaining a portfolio based on one commodity could
have negative implications for institutional investors.
Diversification into other precious metals as well as a mix of
T-Bills and high technology stocks appear to be in order;
- The six geese-a-laying constitutes a luxury which can no longer be
afforded. It has long been felt that the production rate of one egg
per goose per day is an example of the decline in
productivity. Three geese will be let go, and an upgrading in the
selection procedure by personnel will assure management that from
now on every goose it gets will be a good one;
- The seven swans-a-swimming is obviously a number chosen in better
times. The function is primarily decorative. Mechanical swans
are on order. The current swans will be retrained to learn some new
strokes and therefore enhance their outplacement;
- As you know, the eight maids-a-milking concept has been under
heavy scrutiny by the EEOC. A male/female balance in the workforce
is being sought. The more militant maids consider this a dead-end
job with no upward mobility. Automation of the process may permit
the maids to try a-mending, a-mentoring or a-mulching;
- Nine ladies dancing has always been an odd number. This function
will be phased out as these individuals grow older and can no longer
do the steps;
- Ten Lords-a-leaping is overkill. The high cost of Lords plus the
expense of international air travel prompted the Compensation
Committee to suggest replacing this group with ten out-of-work
congressmen. While leaping ability may be somewhat sacrificed,
the savings are significant because we expect an oversupply of
unemployed congressmen this year;
- Eleven pipers piping and twelve drummers drumming is a simple case
of the band getting too big. A substitution with a string
quartet, a cutback on new music and no uniforms will produce savings
which will drop right down to the bottom line;
We can expect a substantial reduction in assorted people, fowl,
animals and other expenses. Though incomplete, studies indicate that
stretching deliveries over twelve days is inefficient. If we can drop
ship in one day, service levels will be improved.
Regarding the lawsuit filed by the attorney's association seeking
expansion to include the legal profession ("thirteen lawyers-a-suing")
action is pending.
Lastly, it is not beyond consideration that deeper cuts may be
necessary in the future to stay competitive. should that happen, the
Board will request management to scrutinize the Snow White Division
to see if seven dwarfs is the right number.
Happy Holidays!
(TFTD received two sightly different versions of this work. Thanks to
Vicky and to Bob for sending it.) (actually three now- Thanks Richard)
My uncle ordered popovers
from the restaurant's bill of fare.
And, when they were served,
he regarded them with a penetrating stare.
Then he spoke great Words of Wisdom
as he sat there on that chair:
"To eat these things," said my uncle,
"You must exercise great care.
You may swallow down what's solid,
BUT...you must spit out the air!"
And as you partake of the world's bill of fare,
that's darned good advice to follow.
Do a lot of spitting out the hot air.
And be careful what you swallow.
-Theodor Seuss Geisel (Dr. Seuss)
From a commencement address
'Twas the Night Before Christmas' as written by a technical writer for a
firm that does Gov't contracting...
'Twas The Night Before Christmas
'Twas the nocturnal segment of the diurnal period preceding the
annual Yuletide celebration, and throughout our place of residence,
kinetic activity was not in evidence among the possessors of this
potential, including that species of domestic rodent known as Mus
musculus. Hosiery was meticulously suspended from the forward edge of the
wood burning caloric apparatus, pursuant to our anticipatory pleasure
regarding an imminent visitation from an eccentric philanthropist among
whose folkloric appellations is the honorific title of St. Nicholas.
The prepubescent siblings, comfortably ensconced in their respective
accommodations of repose, were experiencing subconscious visual
hallucinations of variegated fruit confections moving rhythmically through
their cerebrums. My conjugal partner and I, attired in our nocturnal head
coverings, were about to take slumberous advantage of the hibernal darkness
when upon the avenaceous exterior portion of the grounds there ascended
such a cacophony of dissonance that I felt compelled to arise with alacrity
from my place of repose for the purpose of ascertaining the precise source
thereof.
Hastening to the casement, I forthwith opened the barriers sealing
this fenestration, noting thereupon that the lunar brilliance
without, reflected as it was on the surface of a recent crystalline
precipitation, might be said to rival that of the solar meridian
itself - thus permitting my incredulous optical sensory organs to
behold a miniature airborne runnered conveyance drawn by eight
diminutive specimens of the genus Rangifer, piloted by a minuscule,
aged chauffeur so ebullient and nimble that it became instantly
apparent to me that he was indeed our anticipated caller. With his
ungulate motive power travelling at what may possibly have been more
vertiginous velocity than patriotic alar predators, he vociferated
loudly, expelled breath musically through contracted labia, and
addressed each of the octet by his or her respective cognomen - "Now
Dasher, now Dancer..." et al. - guiding them to the uppermost exterior
level of our abode, through which structure I could readily distinguish the
concatenations of each of the 32 cloven pedal extremities.
As I retracted my cranium from its erstwhile location, and was performing a
180-degree pivot, our distinguished visitant achieved - with utmost
celerity and via a downward leap - entry by way of the smoke passage. He
was clad entirely in animal pelts soiled by the ebony residue from
oxidations of carboniferous fuels which had accumulated on the walls
thereof. His resemblance to a street vendor I attributed largely to the
plethora of assorted playthings which he bore dorsally in a commodious
cloth receptacle.
His orbs were scintillant with reflected luminosity, while his submaxillary
dermal indentations gave every evidence of engaging amiability. The
capillaries of his malar regions and nasal appurtenance were engorged with
blood which suffused the subcutaneous layers, the former approximating the
coloration of Albion's floral emblem, the latter that of the Prunus avium,
or sweet cherry. His amusing sub- and supralabials resembled nothing so
much as a common loop knot, and their ambient hirsute facial adornment
appeared like small, tabular and columnar crystals of frozen water.
Clenched firmly between his incisors was a smoking piece whose grey
fumes, forming a tenuous ellipse about his occiput, were suggestive
of a decorative seasonal circlet of holly. His visage was wider than it was
high, and when he waxed audibly mirthful, his corpulent abdominal region
undulated in the manner of impectinated fruit syrup in a hemispherical
container. He was, in short, neither more nor less than an obese, jocund,
multigenarian gnome, the optical perception of whom rendered me visibly
frolicsome despite every effort to refrain from so being. By rapidly
lowering and then elevating one eyelid and rotating his head slightly to
one side, he indicated that trepidation on my part was groundless.
Without utterance and with dispatch, he commenced filling the
aforementioned appended hosiery with various of the aforementioned
articles of merchandise extracted from his aforementioned previously
dorsally transported cloth receptacle. Upon completion of this task,
he executed an abrupt about-face, placed a single manual digit in
lateral juxtaposition to his olfactory organ, inclined his cranium
forward in a gesture of leave-taking, and forthwith effected his
egress by renegotiating (in reverse) the smoke passage. He then
propelled himself in a short vector onto his conveyance, directed a
musical expulsion of air through his contracted oral sphincter to the
antlered quadrupeds of burden, and proceeded to soar aloft in a
movement hitherto observable chiefly among the seed-bearing portions
of a common weed. But I overheard his parting exclamation, audible
immediately prior to his vehiculation beyond the limits of
visibility: "Ecstatic Yuletide to the planetary constituency, and to
that self same assemblage, my sincerest wishes for a salubriously
beneficial and gratifyingly pleasurable period between sunset and
dawn."
Everything must degenerate into work
if anything is to happen.
-Peter Drucker
ends Dec 96
