[2] Acting is the most minor of gifts and not a very high-class way to earn a living. After all, Shirley Temple could do it at the age of four.
--Katharine Hepburn

[1] An adventure is somebody else in deep shit far, far away.

[2] The land between entertainment and panic.
(see EXPLORATION)

Since that time, federal police authority has grown to a large number of multi-letter agencies - FBI, CIA, INS, IRS, DEA, ATF, etc.

Now comes the Federal Air Transportation Airport Security Service. Can't you see them now? These highly trained men and women in their black outfits with initials in large white letters across their backs?

FAT-ASS - - - - - - - I feel safer already.
--Karen Rhodes, 03 Feb 2004

[2] A system by which, when two people make a mistake, one of them keeps paying for it.

The following is reputed to be the actual answering machine message for the Pacific Palisades High School in California. The school and teachers were being sued by parents who wanted their children's failing grades changed to passing grade even though those children were absent 15-30 times during the semester and had not completed enough school work to pass their classes. The office staff reportedly voted unanimously to use the following as the answering service message for the school:

Hello! You have reached the automated answering service of your school. In order to assist you in connecting the right staff member, please listen to all your options before making a selection:

To lie about why your child is absent - Press 1

To make excuses for why your child did not do his work - Press 2

To complain about what we do - Press 3

To swear at staff members - Press 4

To ask why you didn't get information that was already enclosed in your newsletter and several flyers mailed to you - Press 5

If you want us to raise your child - Press 6

If you want to reach out and touch, slap, or hit someone - Press 7

To request another teacher for the third time this year - Press 8

To complain about bus transportation - Press 9

To complain about school lunches - Press 0

If you realize this is the real world and your child must be accountable/responsible for his/her own behavior, class work, homework, and that it's not the teachers' fault for your child(ren)'s lack of effort, hang up and have a nice day.

Dear Sirs:

I am writing to you for further instructions to what the next step is for me to take in protecting my family from possible attacks by terrorists.

I have my duck taped....

...now what?

As we all know, the Taliban considers it a sin for a man to see a naked woman who is not his wife. So, next Saturday, at 2:00 PM Eastern time, all American women are asked to walk out of their houses completely naked to help weed out any neighborhood terrorists.

Circling your block for one hour is recommended for this anti-terrorist effort. All men are to position themselves in lawn chairs in front of their houses to prove they are not Taliban, demonstrate that they think it's okay to see nude women other than their wives, and to show support for all American women.

And since the Taliban also does not approve of alcohol, a cold six-pack at your side is further proof of your anti-Taliban sentiment.

The American Government appreciates your efforts to root out terrorists and applauds your participation in this anti-terrorist activity.

God bless America!

IT IS YOUR PATRIOTIC DUTY TO PASS THIS ON

"Well," she said, "I think I'll braid my hair today." So she did and she had a wonderful day.

The next day she woke up, looked in the mirror and saw that she had only two hairs on her head.

"H-M-M," she said, "I think I'll part my hair down the middle today." So she did and she had a grand day.

The next day she woke up, looked in the mirror and noticed that she had only one hair on her head.

"Well," she said, "Today I'm going to wear my hair in a pony tail." So she did and she had a fun, fun day.

The next day she woke up, looked in the mirror and noticed that there wasn't a single hair on her head.

"Yay!" she exclaimed, "I don't have to fix my hair today!"

Attitude is everything.

B

• Smokey the Bear stamps out your birthday cake.
• The bird singing outside your window is a buzzard.

• The only instrument that needs a well trained armpit.
  --Jock McBile; Royal Canadian Air Farce
• Stuff cat under arm -- pull legs and chew tail.
• An octopus wearing a kilt.

Beauty is only a light switch away.
--Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham, NC

A Woman's Rule of Thumb: If it has tires or testicles you're going to have trouble with it.
--Women's restroom, Dick's Last Resort, Dallas, TX

A Man's Rule of Thumb: If it has tits or tires you're going to have trouble with it.
--Unknown

You're too good for him.
--Sign over mirror in Women's restroom, Ed Debevic's, Beverly Hills,CA.

No wonder you always go home alone.
--Sign over mirror in Men's restroom, Ed Debevic's, Beverly Hills,CA

[2] A crime in which two rites make a wrong.

To defend the weak and to stand up against bigotry regardless of whether it is politically correct or personally beneficial or harmful to do so is part of the core of decency and I believe, of the JuxtaKnights.

I may not be homosexual, or blue or green, or black, or whatever this week the bigot's have designated as their target, but I WILL stand up regardless, whenever I see that bigotry rear its head.

I WILL defend the weak, always, to the best of my ability.

I WILL not cower or stand by silently when those bigots or that bigotry is on parade.

I do not fear the raising of the spectre of "GOD" that bigots always ultimately attempt, to cause others to stay silent.

And ultimately, an attempt to spread vile small-minded belief structures ought be an offense to all those with higher intelligence.

Because it is those with higher intelligence, that are most in a position to recognize the pattern repeat throughout history, und thus know how it begins, and know where it ends.

I believe there must be a responsibility to counter it.
--The Avant Guardian, 17 Feb 2001

"You know," he says, "I've heard that flights will go quicker if you strike up a conversation with your fellow passenger. So let's talk."

The blonde, who had just opened her book, closes it slowly and says to the guy, "What would you like to discuss?"

"Oh, I don't know," says the guy. "How about nuclear power?"

"OK," says the blonde. "That could be an interesting topic. But let me ask you a question first. A horse, a cow, and a deer all eat the same stuff--grass. Yet the deer excretes little pellets, the cow turns out a flat patty, and the horse produces muffins of dried poop. Why do you suppose that is?"

The guy is dumbfounded. Finally he replies, "I haven't the slightest idea."

"So tell me," says the blonde. "How is it that you feel qualified to discuss nuclear power when you don't know shit?"

BOOK is a revolutionary breakthrough in technology: no wires, no electric circuits, no batteries, nothing to be connected or switched on. It's so easy to use, even a child can operate it.

Compact and portable, it can be used anywhere-even sitting in an armchair by the fire-yet it is powerful enough to hold as much information as a CD-ROM disc.

Here's how it works:

BOOK is constructed of sequentially numbered sheets of paper (recyclable), each capable of holding thousands of bits of information. The pages are locked together with a custom-fit device called a binder which keeps the sheets in their correct sequence.

Opaque Paper Technology (OPT)allows manufacturers to use both sides of the sheet, doubling the information density and cutting costs. Experts are divided on the prospects for further increases in information density; for now, BOOKS with more information simply use more pages. Each sheet is scanned optically, registering information directly into your brain. A flick of the finger takes you to the next sheet.

BOOK may be taken up at any time and used merely by opening it.

BOOK never crashes or requires rebooting, though, like other devices, it can become damaged if coffee is spilled on it and it becomes unusable if dropped too many times on a hard surface. The "browse" feature allows you to move instantly to any sheet, and move forward or backward as you wish. Many come with an "index" feature, which pin-points the exact location of any selected information for instant retrieval.

An optional "BOOKmark" accessory allows you to open BOOK to the exact place you left it in a previous session-even if the BOOK has been closed. BOOKmarks fit universal design standards; thus, a single BOOKmark can be used in BOOKs by various manufacturers. Conversely, numerous BOOK markers can be used in a single BOOK if the user wants to store numerous views at once. The number is limited only by the number of pages in the BOOK. You can also make personal notes next to BOOK text entries with optional pr ogramming tools, Portable Erasable Nib Cryptic Intercommunication Language Styli (PENCILS).

Portable, durable, and affordable, BOOK is being hailed as a precursor of a new entertainment wave. BOOK's appeal seems so certain that thousands of content creators have committed to the platform and investors are reportedly flocking to invest. Look for a flood of new titles soon.
(see ~ OF THE SCREAMINGLY BLOODY OBVIOUS; ~ OF GENESIS ACCORDING TO INTERNAUTS; ~ OF GENESIS ACCORDING TO WHOM?; ATTORNEY GENERAL'S DIRTY ~; SELF-HELP ~; NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR; NOVEL; REAL ~; THE CATCHER IN THE RYE; FRANKENSTEIN'S MONSTER; ROSEMARY'S BABY; in Appendix 22)

"I wouldn't share my secret with just anyone," Morris replies, lowering his voice so the other shoppers won't hear, "But since you're a good and faithful customer, I'll let you in on it. Fish heads. You eat enough of them, you'll be positively brilliant."

"You sell them here?" the customer asks.

"Only $4 apiece," says Morris. The customer buys three. A week later, he's back in the store complaining that the fish heads were disgusting and he isn't any smarter. "You didn't eat enough," says Morris.

The customer goes home with 20 more fish heads. Two weeks later, he's back and this time he's really angry. "Hey, Morris," he says, "You're selling me fish heads for $4 apiece when I just found out I can buy the whole fish for $2. You're ripping me off!"

"You see?" says Morris. "You're smarter already."

Willie Willie Harry Stee
Harry Dick John Harry three;
One two three Neds, Richard two
Harrys four five six....then who?
Edwards four five, Dick the bad,
Harrys (twain), Ned six (the lad);
Mary, Bessie, James you ken,
Then Charlie, Charlie, James again...
Will and Mary, Anna Gloria,
Georges four, Will four Victoria;
Edward seven next, and then
Came George the fifth in nineteen ten;
Ned the eighth soon abdicated
Then George six was coronated;
After which Elizabeth
And that's all folks until her death.

C

Once upon a time in the Kingdom of Heaven, God went missing for six days. Eventually, Michael the Archangel found him on the seventh day; resting. He inquired of God, "Where have you been?"

God sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction and proudly pointed downwards through the clouds. "Look, Michael. Look what I've made."

The archangel looked puzzled. "What is it?"

"It's a planet," replied God, "and I've put LIFE on it. I'm going to call it Earth and it's going to be a great place of balance."

"Balance?" Michael asked, still confused.

God explained, pointing to different parts of Earth, "For example, Northern Europe will be a place of great opportunity and wealth while Southern Europe is going to be poor; the Middle East over there will be a hot spot. Over there I've placed a continent of white people and over there is a continent of black people, God said, then continued, pointing out separate countries, "This one will be extremely hot and arid while this one will be very cold and covered in ice."

The archangel, impressed by God's work, then pointed to a large landmass in the top corner. "What's that one?"

"Ah," said God. "That's Canada, the most glorious place on Earth. There are beautiful mountains, lakes, rivers, streams and an exquisite coastline. The people from Canada are going to be modest, intelligent and humorous and they're going to be found traveling the world. They'll be extremely sociable, hard working and high achieving, and they will be known throughout the world as diplomats and carriers of peace. I'm also going to give them super-human, undefeatable ice hockey players who will be admired and feared by all who come across them."

Michael gasped in wonder and admiration, then said, "But what about balance, God? You said there will be balance!"

And God replied wisely, "Just wait until you see the loud-mouth bastards I'm putting next to them. . . . "

[2] These nice Canadians, whom George W. Bush once managed to triumphantly identify as "our most important neighbors to the north" are famous for their reticence. Canada, Land of the Understatement. I once proposed their national motto should be: "Now, Let's Not Get Excited." Not that I would ever generalize. I attribute their commendable phlegm to being too cold to waste much energy, and also to regular ingestion of oatmeal. Nice, polite, calm, reserved, chock full of common sense and living next to us -- what a fate. For them, it's like having the Simpsons for next-door neighbors.
--Molly Ivins, Oh Dear!, 10 Aug 2004

We built our national railway because our winters were too brutal and our Rockies too bleak to build a road for wagon trains, like they did in the U.S.

We adopted medicare because we were terrified of the winter flu. If we ever slashed welfare like Bill Clinton did this week, we'd be tripping over bodies all winter as penniless Canadians froze on every street in the country.

We are a country united by jumper cables.
--Josh Freed, Page Two Column, Mtl Gazette, 03 Aug 1996

The two old codgers who inherited the task of engraving this found she had economized on the size of her tombstone, and they could not get it on one line.

At the funeral the crowd discovered it was engraved simply: RETURNED UNOPENED

In the late 30's, early 40's, the Rangerettes drill team started at Kilgore Junior College (which is still a back-of-beyond school in a backside of nowhere town in east Texas...) at least partly to keep the fans entertained during halftime so's they wouldn't go wandering off getting into trouble UNDER the stands... But it was intended, too, to be a status thing for the girls, too, and hopefully to recruit more of them into college, in much the same way as athletics did for the boys -- and at that level it's at least as demanding in terms of conditioning and training and discipline as ANY sport.

T&A? No more than theatre or dance or any other performing art where the performers are selected at least partly on physical appearance and ability...

One of the Rangerettes' main rivals, one of the top three or four drill teams during the 50's and early 60's, the heyday, was the Westfield HS Wranglerettes here in Houston. I've covered the last three reunions... and many of these ladies are now in their 60's and still remember the routines though the high kicks don't get to the hat brim any more... but having spoken to them at some length it's quite clear that boys and the winning thereof had little or nothing to do with being on the team. They were celebrities. They got to travel all over the world, performed here and there and everywhere, met people... One lady told me about performing for the Emperor of Japan and spending a week touring the country. Most of these were girls from NOT wealthy families who would probably never have had ANY of these things available to them... and some of these women were not, by any stretch, "pretty." But the drill team was entertainment, not a beauty contest, and if they could do the routine and stay in time and sync, they were performer accorded the respect that went with that status.

And then came the Dallas Cowboys, and the Cowboys begat the marketing division and the marketing division begat the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders... and it all went straight to hell right about then. The Pros had Cheerleaders, the Cheerleaders had short shorts and big hair and big.... and then, of course, the marketers got smart and it became a craze, and for a couple of years when the `boys were doing their "what's a football?" thing, the cheerleaders were a bigger draw than the team... sold more posters, more memorabilia, got sponsors, did guest appearances, etc, and the routines got rougher and raunchier and sloppier and the fans bought more and more and more... and then all the other teams did it and all the other sports and it filtered downhill...

And in many schools now the cheerleading squad and the dance team get more money than the entire girls' athletics department.

<censored>
--R. Clayton McKee, 09 Apr 2005

2. Multiple Personality Disorder: We Three Kings Disoriented Are

3. Dementia: I Think I'll be Home for Christmas

4. Narcissistic: Hark the Herald Angels Sing About Me

5. Manic: Deck the Halls and Walls and House and Lawn and Streets and Stores and Office and Town and Cars and Buses and Trucks and Trees and . . .

6. Paranoid: Santa Claus is Coming to Town to Get Me

7. Borderline Personality Disorder: Thoughts of Roasting on an Open Fire

8. Personality Disorder: You Better Watch Out, I'm Gonna Cry, I'm Gonna Pout, Maybe I'll Tell You Why

9. Attention Deficit Disorder: Silent night, Holy oooh look at the froggy can I have a chocolate, why is France so far away?

10. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells,Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells,Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle,Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells,Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle . . .

(If not, think recurring feedback loop.)

Software doesn't just appear on the shelves by magic. That program shrink-wrapped inside the box along with the indecipherable manual and 12-paragraph disclaimer notice actually came to you by way of an elaborate path, through the most rigid quality control on the planet.

Here, shared for the first time with the general public, are the inside details of the program development cycle.

1. Programmer produces code he believes is bug-free.

2. Product is tested. 20 bugs are found.

3. Programmer fixes 10 of the bugs and explains to the testing department that the other 10 aren't really bugs.

4. Testing department finds that five of the fixes didn't work and discovers 15 new bugs.

5. See 3.

6. See 4.

7. See 5.

8. See 6.

9. See 7.

10. See 8.

11. Due to marketing pressure and an extremely premature product announcement based on overly-optimistic programming schedule, the product is released.

12. Users find 137 new bugs.

13. Original programmer, having cashed his royalty check, is nowhere to be found.

14. Newly-assembled programming team fixes almost all of the 137 bugs, but introduce 456 new ones.

15. Original programmer sends underpaid testing department a postcard from Fiji. Entire testing department quits.

16. Company is bought in a hostile takeover by competitor using profits from their latest release, which had 783 bugs.

17. New CEO is brought in by board of directors. He hires programmer to redo program from scratch.

18. Programmer produces code he believes is bug-free....

Class has a sense of humour. It knows a good laugh is the best lubricant for oiling the machinery of human relations.

Class never makes excuses. It takes its lumps and learns from past mistakes.

Class knows that good manners are nothing more than a series of small, inconsequential sacrifices.

Class bespeaks an aristocracy that has nothing to do with ancestors or money. Some wealthy "blue bloods" have no class, while individuals struggling to make ends meet are loaded with it.

Class is real. It can't be faked.

Class never tries to build itself up by tearing others down. Class is already up and need not strive to look better by making others look worse.

Class can "walk with kings and keep its virtue and talk with crowds and keep the common touch." Everyone is comfortable with the person who has class because that person is comfortable with himself.

If you've got class, you've got it made. If you don't have class, no matter what else you have, it doesn't make any difference.
--Ann Landers
(see NOBLESSE OBLIGE)

Collecting our many suitcases, the ten of us entered the cramped customs area. A young customs official watched our entourage in disbelief, "Ma'am," he said, "Do all these children and this luggage belong to you?"

"Yes, sir," my mother said with a sigh. "They're all mine."

The customs agent began his interrogation: "Ma'am, do you have any weapons, contraband or illegal drugs in your possession?"

"Sir," she calmly answered, "if I'd had any of those items, I would have used them by now."

You've been cloned by the lizard creatures who are arriving en mass sometime in late 98 to take over the world. They've been secretly cloning humans in an attempt to learn about our society in order to discover how to destroy it. Not too many people know about this, Laurie. People will scoff if you scream for help or try to explain what's happening to the authorities. Your best chance to destroy your clone before it starts wreaking havoc in Burnaby is to go out into your garden when the moon is at the ha lf (not full as some would suppose) and flick a flashlight on and off every 3 - 5 seconds. Make sure the flashlight is covered with red cellophane. Walk up and down the vegetable rows in a manner sort of like a chicken. Every tenth step imitate a siren sound very loudly. Shortly you will be contacted by an agent for the lizard people. What you need to do then is spray the creature with your garden hose -- compounds used in the hose are toxic to the creatures. The mother ship will be following t hese activities and will see that cloning you was a gross mistake and they will destroy the clone to avoid drawing attention to their nefarious activities. The agent, enraged and in pain from the toxic compounds you've drenched it with, will try to chase you. It might be bellowing, and more than likely it will threaten you with action from Earthly authorities. Do not believe this! It's a ruse! Keep running toward the house, try to stay ahead of it. Get inside, lock all the doors and go to sleep. When and if you're questioned about this incident later, deny everything.

Good luck.
--Kestrel T'Rael, 10 Sep 1996

"Do Not Irritate The Homicidal Psychopath"
--R. Clayton McKee, 19 Aug 2003

But you white folks:
When you born, you pink.
When you grow up, you white.
When you go in sun, you red.
When you cold, you blue.
When you scared, you yellow.
When you sick, you green.
When you bruised, you purple.
And when you die, you gray.

So who you callin' colored?

[...] the most dismaying mass of undiluted horror and prodigious impossibility ever visited on the sanity of a nation's youth.
--Fank Vlamos, American Mercury

[2] Three thousand years ago an amorous Egyptian couple (probably libidinous liberals) experimented with a linen pouch, producing the world's first known condom. Some right-wingers still haven't gotten over it.

[1]America's only Native Criminal Class

[2] I have become convinced that one useless man is called a disgrace, two useless men are called a law firm & three or more useless men are called a congress.
--John Adams (1735-1826)
(see AGNEW)

Of course, selling something that anyone can copy for nothing is sometimes difficult unless there's something in your presentation that makes it valuable. I might fork over for a leather-bound parchment copy of, say, Johnson's Dictionary even though the text is Gutenberg'd and freely available, but I'd be buying the BOOK, not the words.
--Clayton McKee
(see also BOOKS)

It is counter-clockwise to remove that small metal pill from the inside of the watch.
--Michael Nellis, 24 Jan 1998

Country fences need to be horse high, pig tight, and bull strong.

Life is not about how fast you run, or how high you climb, but how well you bounce.

Keep skunks and bankers at a distance.

Life is simpler when you plow around the stumps.

A bumble bee is faster than a John Deere tractor.

Trouble with a milk cow is she won't stay milked.

Don't skinny dip with snapping turtles.

Words that soak into your ears are whispered, not yelled.

Meanness don't happen overnight.

To know how country folks are doing, look at their barns, not their houses.

Never lay an angry hand on a kid or an animal, it just ain't helpful.

Teachers, bankers, and hoot owls sleep with one eye open.

Forgive your enemies. It messes with their heads.

Don't sell your mule to buy a plow.

Two can live as cheap as one if one don't eat.

Don't corner something meaner than you.

You can catch more flies with honey than vinegar, assuming you want to catch flies.

Man is the only critter who feels the need to label things as flowers or weeds.

It don't take a very big person to carry a grudge.

Don't go huntin' with a fellow named Chug-A-Lug.

You can't unsay a cruel thing.

Every path has some puddles.

When you wallow with pigs, expect to get dirty.

The best sermons are lived, not preached.

Most of the stuff people worry about never happens.
(see WISDOM)

Hmmmmm. I think that should be a cranio-rectal extraction. In your form I think it should be craniorectumectomy.

(OTOH, that sounds like an excision of the rectum, head and all.)

Have you also heard of neuroptic-rectosis? It's a condition whereby one's optic nerve is connected to one's rectum, giving one a shitty outlook on life.
--Michael Nellis

I could accept "extraction" if the head had been placed or shoved there. In some cases, however, I suspect it's growing there, hence the suffix "-ectomy," implying a surgical procedure. I'll accept the "-um" in there, though.

P.S. -- You know, don't you, about the folks who need glass belt buckles?

It's the only way they can see where they're going with their head up their ...
--Phil Reynold
(see PROCTOLOGY)

Call it the crisis of the Librarian.
--Robert Anson Heinlein, Introduction to The Worlds of ~, pg 23
[Twenty plus years before the advent of the Internet. --MN]
(see ROBERT ANSON HEINLEIN, Appendix 19; see also COROLLARY TO STURGEONS LAW, PRINCIPLE OF SERENDIPITY, SPECIFICATIONS FOR THE SIMON-PURE SCIENCE FICTION STORY, THREE AXIOMS OF PROPHESY)

D

Danger for the sake of danger is for children who don't really believe they can be killed.
--Lazurus Long, Time Enough For Love, pg 102

For more information, see the essay Let Me Count The Days, by Isaac Asimov, which is reprinted in Counting The Eons, ISBN 0-385-17976-6, Dewey # 520 A832.

[2] The generally accepted date of creation among Jewish scholars [...] was that the date of the Creation was October 7, 3761 B.C. [...]

James Ussher, the Anglican archbishop of Armagh, Ireland, decided in 1654, [...] that the Creation took place at 9 A.M. on October 23, 4004 B.C. [...]

Other calculations put the Creation as far back as 5509 B.C.
--Isaac Asimov, In The Beginning, pg 9

=================================================================
From: RICH VERAA
To: BARBARA SHAFFERMAN
Subj: CLUB ..................................................................

BS< I've always wanted to join Densa_. It was started by an
BS< Englishman (name unknown to me, address unknown to me) for people
BS< who aren't "smart" enough to join Mensa. As far as I know it
BS< costs nothing to join, has no meetings, no agenda, and no purpose.
BS< As long as it has no bylaws, no officers and makes no sense, I'd
BS< like to join too.

From http://www.densa.com:
.................................................................

An Official densa Membership Card will impress everyone: your boss, your wife or husband, your children and even your parents.

Your business associates will be jealous that you belong to such an exclusive club as will the religious leaders in your community because they will no longer have to pray for your soul.

The Official densa Membership Card is also very practical because it will make you a somebody.

To illustrate your increased prestige, just drop in at your favourite expensive restaurant such as Maxim's in Paris, Spago in LA or Prego in Toronto. Order anything your heart desires -- a pound of Iranian caviar, a few bottles of Dom Perignon champagne, a 5 lb. lobster with a side of French truffles washed down with a bottle or two of 1964 Chateau Margeaux.

Then instead of paying the bill for $6,217, simply show the Maitre d' your Official densa Membership Card and chances are they will automatically comp your bill because they will be so impressed.

In addition to the Official densa Membership Card, you also get a really sincere letter from Parchese to you on densa letterhead that is suitable for framing. Here's an example.

densa, for the rest of us

Dear Person:

Thank you for letting me help you instead of Dr. Jack Kevorkian. I hope you are feeling better now and that your relations with both your wife and mistress have improved. I just know they'll understand, everybody does.

Yours truly

Parchese Zabaglione

Both the Official densa Membership Card and the really sincere letter personally signed by Parchese Zabaglione cost just US $5 cash and includes delivery anywhere in the world.

To order, please send US $5 to the following address. Be sure to inc lude your name and return address and any special words you would like on Parchese's really sincere letter. Allow 4-6 weeks.

Parchese Zabaglione
President, densa,
55 Charles Street West,
Suite 2801,
Toronto, Ontario,
Canada M5S 2W9

The lady replied, "I need it to poison my husband."

The pharmacist's eyes got big and he exclaimed, "Lord have mercy! I can't give you cyanide to kill your husband. That's against the law! I'll lose my license! They'll throw both of us in jail! All kinds of bad things will happen. Absolutely not! You CANNOT have any cyanide!"

The lady reached into her purse and pulled out a picture of her husband in bed with the pharmacist's wife. The pharmacist looked at the picture and said, "Well now, that's different. You didn't tell me you had a prescription."

E

It's a very good word! An elitist is simply one who believes in excellence, in the better thing. For God's sake! In my generation, better art was virtue. The word 'elitist' is now used as a completely destructive word. It now has a prejudice against what is good, in other words. It has become a barbarous word -- it really belongs to barbarians.
--Louis Dudek, in an interview by Books In Canada

SURGERY: Operations are now banned. As long as you are an employee here, you need all your organs. You should not consider removing anything. We hired you intact. To have something removed constitutes a breach of employment.

PERSONAL DAYS: Each employee will receive 104 personal days each year. They are called Saturday and Sunday.

VACATION DAYS: All employees will take their vacations at the same time every year. The vacation days are as follows: January 1st, July 4th & December 25th.

BEREAVEMENT LEAVE: Bereavement is no excuse for missing work. There is nothing you can do for your dead friends, relatives, or coworkers. Every effort should be made to have non-employees attend to the arrangements. In rare cases where employee involvement is necessary, the funeral should be scheduled in the late afternoon. We will be glad to allow you to work through your lunch hour and subsequently leave one hour early, provided your share of the work is done.

ABSENCE DUE TO YOUR OWN DEATH: This will be accepted as an excuse. However we require at least 2 weeks notice, as it is your duty to train your own replacement.

RESTROOM USE: Entirely too much time is being spent in the restroom. In the future, we will follow the practice of going in alphabetical order. For instance, all employees whose names begin with "A" will go from 8:00 to 8:20: employees whose names begin with "B" will go from 8:20 to 8:40, and so on. If you are unable to go at the allotted time, it will be necessary to wait until the next day when your scheduled turn comes again. In extreme emergencies, employees may switch their time with a coworker, however, both employees and supervisors must approve this exchange in writing. In addition, there is now a strict 3-minute time limit inside the stalls. At the end of 3 minutes, an alarm will sound, the toilet paper roll will retract, and the stall door will open.

LUNCH BREAK:

• a) Skinny People: Skinny people get 1 hour for lunch, as they need to eat more so they can look healthy.

• b) Middleweight People: Middleweight people get 30 minutes for lunch, so they can get a balanced meal to maintain their average figures.

• c) Fat People: Fat people get 5 minutes for lunch, because that's all the time they need to drink a Slim Fast and take a diet pill.

DRESS CODE: It is advised that you come to work dressed according to your salary. If we see you wearing a pair of $350.00 Prada running shoes and carrying a $600.00 Gucci bag, we will assume that you are doing well financially and therefore do not need a raise.

Thank you for your loyalty to our company. We are here to provide a positive employment experience. Therefore, all questions, comments, concerns, complaints, frustrations, irritations, aggravations, insinuations, allegations, accusations, contemplations, consternations or input should be directed elsewhere.

Have a nice weekend,
The Management

[2]The art of euphemism -- refusing to use a painful word like "dying" -- has not passed away.
--William Safire, On Language (an anthology of essays), pg 82

[2] Though WHY is something to ponder -- what evolutionary thing is benefitted by tongue rolling?
--Barb Jernigan

Spitting. Intelligence is a survival trait. Long ago in our dark and distant past, the sabre teethed Gumbie critter would hunt the apish man. The ones who had spit stains on their hides would stand out as being especially doltish and slow of intellect and, therefore, were targeted as lunch considerably more often, because they obviously didn't have the IQ it took to get away.
--Michael Nellis, 19 Nov 1994

F

"Yep," the wife replied, "in-laws."

[2] Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.
--Oscar Wilde

There is a time for fru-fru
And, a time for no fru-fru
And a season for lace and leather
And a place for nothing at all.

Heels are stoopid on camping trips and hiking gear out-of-place when Out for An Occasion. Professional wear will up your IQ at least 12 points at a job interview, and down it by 30 on the beach.

And, never, never visit your Baptist Maiden Aunt or chop wood in the nude.

A little fashion advice from the Queen.

Yours, Lezlie
--Lezlie Kinyon, Jan 2004

After Robin Hood died, Friar Tuck decided to buy a flower shop. But just a week after opening he discovered that some of his plants were wilting because of a bad ventilation job. So he asked his best friend, George, to put new vents in for him. George fixed the problem in about an hour, and charged the friar five dollars. But another week later the friar was discouraged to find even more flowers wilting. So he asked another friend, Tom, to re-ventilate the shop. Tom worked all day on the shop's ventilation system, but alas, one more week later, Friar Tuck saw that nearly all of his beautiful greenery was now ugly brownery. So finally he called his cousin's best friend's uncle, Hugh, to install new vents. Hugh spent over 3 days on the job, carefully placing ductwork all over and putting in new blowers and filters. He charged the friar an arm and a leg, but it was worth it, because in no time at all, the flowers in the shop were again healthy and bright.

Which just shows to go you,

Hugh, and only Hugh, can re-vent florist friars.
--Retold by Rachel Veraa in Writing echo

What disease did "cured" ham actually have?

Do illiterate people get the full effect of alphabet soup?

Who was the first person to look at a cow and say, "I think I'll squeeze these dangly little things here, and drink whatever comes out"?

Why do toasters always have a setting that burns toast to a horrible crisp, which no decent human being would ever eat?

Why is there a light in the refrigerator, but not in the freezer?

If corn oil is made from corn, and vegetable oil is made from vegetables, what is baby oil made from?

If Jimmy cracks corn and no one cares, what's the point of the stupid song?

This intermittent activity, resulting in lulls and furies, is a further elementary deviation from the pattern of most other sports where constant and fluid motion is more prevalent. These thirty second interludes, punctuated by split-second action, only truly appreciated in slow-motion video replays which are now also provided in the newer stadia on monstruous viewing screens, are necessitated by the time it takes to unravel the pile of humanity, allow the injured to be removed, and re-establish the line of scrimmage.
--William Arens, Playing With Aggression essay,
and reprinted in Not Work Alone, pg 72-73

It was the early 1940s in a small town on the Ohio/Indiana border. The nation was just drag-ging out of the Depression, the fascists were moving throughout Europe and, more impor-tantly, the torrid tale of lust and power, "Forever Amber" was scandalizing the country, not to mention the ladies of the Union City Evangelical United Brethren Church.

My grandmother, numbering herself among the scandalized, made it known in no uncertain terms that my father was absolutely, positively forbidden from reading "that filthy book," a declaration that all but assured my father would hop on his bike, ride to the Darke County library and place his name on the sizable list of folks awaiting a shot at the offensive tome.

The fact there was a waiting list is what we in the storytelling game call the zinger.

In retrospect, I can't imagine the early teen version of my father suffering through 400 pages of English historical romance just to get to the occasional heaving bosom. But the outrage admonitions of the ladies of the Union City Evangelical United Brethren Church can be a powerful motivator.

The real moral of the "Forever Amber" story is, of course, that the best way to guarantee someone do something -- especially a kid -- is to tell them they can't. Add in a little danger-to-the-eternal-soul rhetoric and you can get them to do pretty much anything.
--Bart Mills, Banning books in the land of the free

[2] Sugar, starch, grease, and burnt crunchy bits.
--Pterry, Men At Arms, pg 173
(see COOKBOOK Appendix 21)

G

Shortly after sending the letter, the father received this reply, "For HEAVEN'S SAKE, Dad, don't dig up that garden. That's where I buried the GUNS!"

At 4 A.M. the next morning, a dozen British soldiers showed up with shovels and dug up the entire garden. They found no munitions. Confused, the old man wrote another note to his son telling him what happened.

His son's reply was: "Best I could do from here. Now plant your potatoes."

The success of a brand name is often a double-edged sword for the owning company. Initially, a company's dream is to become so successful with its product that customers use their brandname as a generic, "Need to ship your documents overnight? Just FedEx them!" As the brand becomes more popular, they struggle to protect it lest it gets watered down and becomes a generic -- a victim of its own success. Did you know the words adrenaline, aspirin, celluloid, escalator, gramophone, granola, heroin, kerosene were all trademarks once owned by companies? [O]nce trademarks, [they are] now are dictionary entries: bona fide words of the English language.
--Stuti Garg (stuti@namix.com)
[Source:A.Word.A.Day --MN]

I have always wanted to have my family history traced, but I can't afford to spend a lot of money to do it. Any suggestions?
--Sam in California

Dear Sam:

Run for public office.

But it is the charter airline of the Mile High Club.
--Michael Nellis

I always wanted to be a sex object, but this is ridiculous.
--Peter McNeill, 02 Mar 1998

• Seasons Greetings:

  Have a happy secular and non-denominational winter holiday with appropriate amounts of guilt and contrition for the monetarily- and materially-challenged. Best wishes to your respective life-partners or other designated significant others. May your low-fat, low-salt, vegan, dolphin-safe, organic, kosher, packing-minimized and non-ozone-depleting winter feasts meet or exceed all your expectations; still bearing in mind the wretched masses who have nothing but filth, death, disease, and poverty to look forward to this holiday season.

  p.s. Profuse apologies to those who may be offended by the term 'holiday' since 'holy' implies the existance of a superior, non-inclusive being. No offense was intended to your beliefs or lack thereof.

• Winter Solstice Greetings:

  Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral, celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.

  And a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2002, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great, (not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country or is the only "AMERICA" in the western hemisphere), and without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith, choice of c omputer platform, or sexual preference of the wishee.

  (By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms. This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/himself or others, and is void where prohibited by law, and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year, or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.)

Never let it be said that ground crews lack a sense of humor.

Here are some actual maintenance complaints submitted by Qantas' pilots (marked with a P) and the solutions recorded (marked with an S) by maintenance engineers.

By the way, Qantas is the only major airline that has never had an accident.

P: Left inside main tire almost needs replacement.
S: Almost replaced left inside main tire.

P: Test flight OK, except auto-land very rough.
S: Auto-land not installed on this aircraft.

P: Something loose in cockpit.
S: Something tightened in cockpit.

P: Dead bugs on windshield.
S: Live bugs on back-order.

P: Autopilot in altitude-hold mode produces a 200 feet per minute descent.
S: Cannot reproduce problem on ground.

P: Evidence of leak on right main landing gear.
S: Evidence removed.

P: DME volume unbelievably loud.
S: DME volume set to more believable level.

P: Friction locks cause throttle levers to stick.
S: That's what they're for.

P: IFF inoperative.
S: IFF always inoperative in OFF mode.

P: Suspected crack in windshield.
S: Suspect you're right.

P: Number 3 engine missing.
S: Engine found on right wing after brief search.

P: Aircraft handles funny.
S: Aircraft warned to straighten up, fly right, and be serious.

P: Target radar hums.
S: Reprogrammed target radar with lyrics.

P: Mouse in cockpit.
S: Cat installed.

And the best one for last...

P: Noise coming from under instrument panel. Sounds like a midget pounding on something with a hammer.
S: Took hammer away from midget

H

Some of the outrageous overcharges in Iraq are being investigated. And of course the investigations are paid for by the taxpayers, as well. KBR overcharged $16 million for meals served to troops at one base in Kuwait in one month alone. It had claimed 42,000 meals a day were served, when only 14,000 were served. KBR imported fuel for Iraq from Kuwait for $2.64 a gallon when it was available for 96 cents, according to the Congressional Research Service. The record on Halliburton/KBR government contracts is so bad, "Halliburton" is becoming a synonym on the Internet for ripping off the government.
--circa March 2004

1. So your daughter's a hooker, and it spoiled your day.
Look at the bright side, it's really good pay.

2. My tire was thumping. I thought it was flat.
When I looked at the tire... I noticed your cat.
Sorry!

3. Heard your wife left you, How upset you must be.
But don't fret about it...
She moved in with me.

4. Looking back over the years that we've been together,
I can't help but wonder -
What the hell was I thinking?

5. Congratulations on your wedding day!
Too bad no one likes your husband.

6. How could two people as beautiful as you...
Have such an ugly baby?

7. I've always wanted to have someone to hold, someone to love.
After having met you ...
I've changed my mind.

8. I must admit, you brought Religion into my life.
I never believed in Hell...
till I met you.

9. As the days go by, I think of how lucky I am...
That you're not here to ruin it for me.

10. Congratulations on your promotion.
Before you go...
would you like to take this knife out of my back?
You'll probably need it again.

11. Someday I hope to get married.
But not to you...

12. Happy birthday! You look great for your age...
Almost Lifelike!

13. When we were together, you always said you'd die for me.
Now that we've broken up,
I think it's time you kept your promise.

14. We have been friends for a very long time...
what say we stop?

15. I'm so miserable without you ...
it's almost like you're here.

16. Congratulations on your new bundle of joy.
Did you ever find out who the father was?

17. Your friends and I wanted to do something special for your birthday.
So we're having you put to sleep.

18. Happy Birthday, Uncle Dad!
(Available only in Arkansas,Tennessee, Kentucky and West Virginia)

It was unfortunate for Ammon's theory that an Italian scholar, Livi, found just the reverse situation in southern Italy, where the rural population around Naples turned out to be prevailingly narrow-headed, while a higher incidence of broad-headed persons was found in the city of Naples itself.
--Victor Barnouw, Anthropologist

Which only goes to show that the only thing that will fit into a narrow-skull is a narrow mind.
--Michael Nellis

Nothing much happens in heaven, and most people there are bores.
--Philip Jose Farmer, Introduction to The Dark Tower by Richard A. Lupoff
(The Dungeon: Volume I), pg v
(see HELL: [HOTTER THAN HEAVEN], HELL: [PHYSICS OF])

Seeing Catholicism as the root of the "Irish Problem," the British took draconian measures to suppress the religion, and with it, they hoped, Irish culture and Irish national identity. [...]

Among the "Penal Laws" passed to "Prevent the Further Growth of Popery," education was a particular target. [...]

The British hoped that the Irish young attending British-sponsored Protestant schools would wean themselves off Catholicism. But they hoped in vain: it would take more than oppression or even bounty to prise apart the Irish and their religion. The result was a spontaneous underground educational movement, the "hedge schools," with itinerant Catholic teachers leading secret classes in ever-changing outdoor locations. Often conditions were appalling, as a visitor noted in 1776: "They might as well be termed ditch schools, for I have seen many a ditch full of scholars." But by 1826, of the entire student body of 550,000 an estimated 403,000 were enrolled in hedge schools. Increasingly a romantic symbol of Irish resistance, the schools inspired the poet John O'Hagan to write:

Still crouching 'neath the sheltering hedge,
Or stretched on mountain fern,
The teacher and his pupils met feloniously to learn.

I thought hendiadysis was the dialysis you go through after every visit to your mother to get all the chicken soup out of your blood and get back to the junkfood lifestyle.
--Sue Squire
(see COOKBOOK Appendix 21)

* That, for example, stolen horses got dismantled at dead of night and might well turn up with a dye job and two different legs. And it was said that there was one horse in Ankh-Morpork that had a longitudinal seam from head to tail, being sewn together from what was left of two horses that had been involved in a particularly nasty accident.
--Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett, pg 244

The Hogfather is said to have originated in the legend of a local king who, one winters night, happened to be passing, or so he said, the home of three young women and heard them sobbing because they had no food to celebrate a midwinter feast. He took pity on the and threw a packet of sausages through the window.

(Badly concussing one of them but there's no point in spoilng a good legend.)
--Terry Pratchett, Soul Music, pg 69

"Yes, Robyn," I explained, "but you see that because you're smarter than the average Hollywood producer. After all, you're eleven."
--Isaac Asimov, In Joy Still Felt, pg 398

2. Clumsy? Avoid cutting yourself while slicing vegetables by getting someone else to hold them while you chop away.

3. Avoid arguments with the Mrs. about lifting the toilet seat by simply use the sink.

4. For high blood pressure sufferers: simply cut yourself and bleed for a few minutes thus, reducing the pressure in your veins.

5. A mouse trap, placed on top of your alarm clock, will prevent you from rolling over and going back to sleep after you hit the snooze button.

6. If you have a bad cough, take a large dose of laxatives, then you will be afraid to cough.

7. Have a bad toothache? Smash your thumb with a hammer, then you will forget about the toothache.

8. Be really nice to your family and friends, you never know when you might need them to empty your bedpan!

(Stand more than 10 feet away before triggering Miniature Thermonuclear Device. Use only batteries of the brand recommended by the manufacturer. Using old batteries or mixing different brands may cause fire or explosion. Acme Guard Poodle will not function properly in underwater environments without purchase of Poodle Immersion Package. Do not open Poodle, No user-serviceable parts inside.)
(see NUCLEAR WEAPONS; GUARD BUTTERFLY)

At the conclusion of the Homeland Security debate Senator Robert Byrd said of it in part:

This Department is a bureaucratic behemoth cooked up by political advisors to satisfy several inside Washington agendas.

1) It is intended to protect the presiden t from criticism and fault -- should another attack occur.

2) It is intended to eliminate large numbers of dedicated, trained federal workers, so that lucrative contracts for their services may be awarded to favored private entities.

3) It will be used to channel federal research moneys and grants to big corporate contributors without the usual federal procurement standards that ensure fair competition and best value for the tax dollar.

4) It will foster easier spying and information-gathering on ordinary citizens which may be used in ways which could have nothing whatsoever to do with homeland security.

And now with this new bill, which showed up only last week on the doorstep of the Senate, insult has been added to injury by provisions that further exploit the already shamefully exploited issue of homeland security with pork for certain states and certain businesses.

My, my, my, how low we have sunk.

[2] Hope costs. Once you concede that problems can be solved you have to get up off your ass. Despair, by contrast, is cheap, self-powering, eliminates unwanted guilt, and requires -- permits! -- no effort. But you die young and you're no fun to be around in the meantime.
--Spider Robinson, User Friendly, pg 243
(see DESPAIR)

Horse sense is what keeps horses from betting on what people will do.
--Raymond Nash, quoted in Common Sense, pg 175

"One horse's neck, please, innkeeper."

"Eh? You don't know how? Well, then, can you make me a horse's ass?"

"Whaddaya MEAN it's too late?!"
--George Willard

DOING HOUSEWORK:
My idea of housework is to sweep the room with a glance
--Pillow in a Signals catalogue

HOUSEWORK ATTENTION DEFICIT DISORDER: I'm *REALLY* ADD when it comes to housework. Carry this to that room. Set it down. Carry that to the other room. Set IT down. Carry this other thing back to.... Ooh! I have email! It's very sad.
--Barb Jernigan

NO MORE HOUSEWORK:
1. Open a new file in your PC.
2. Name it "Housework."
3. Send it to the RECYCLE BIN
4. Empty the RECYCLE BIN
5. Your PC will ask you, "Are you sure you want to delete Housework permanently?"
6. Answer calmly, "Yes," and press the mouse button firmly . . .
7. Feel better?

"Not over two percent, at best."

"That's fair enough. And a stupid little beetle does fifty times as well without turning a hair. We don't look so hot, do we?"
--Dr. Mary Lou (M.L.) Martin, Let There Be Light
(reprinted in the anthology The Man Who Sold The Moon, pg 5)
(see DINOSAURS)

I

Nothing could be easier.

Take up a position near the revolving door of your choice. Wait for some unsuspecting bozo to start pushing his way through the door. Throw yourself into the door in a vicious body check going against the direction in which it is revolving. Watch bozo bounce off the door when it slams into him.

Simple. Yes?
--Michael Nellis

A variation and just as much fun... enter the door on the same side as the bozo, in the section just behind him, and accelerate the spinning of the door by throwing yourself into it so that he doesn't have sufficient time to clear the other side. (be ready to exit swinging)
--Richard Rogers

If it's long enough, hard enough, and all the way in, it's in decent.

Oh, I get it. Industrial pollutants are what gubmints are using to mark their territorial limits in the oceans.

Sheesh. You think they'd just draw a dotted line on the water.
--Michael Nellis

Today I finished 2 bags of potato chips, a lemon pie, a fifth of Jack Daniels and a small box of chocolate candy.

I feel better already.

[2] My poor mouse... It only has one ball.
--Tagline

Why the hell didn't I think of that?

<glancing at mouse>

<snrch>

It might only have one ball but it's sure got more tail than anybody else.
--Michael Nellis

But now a recent megastudy of megavitamins says they're all next to useless. The only thing they do is make you feel like they're doing something -- though "They" say that that alone can make you feel better.
--Josh Freed, Page Two Column, Montreal Gazette, 07 Sep 2002
(see THEY)

=======================================================================
BBS: Bab-O-Manie
Date: 03-03-95 (09:34)
From: MICHAEL NELLIS
To: DARREN MARCY
Subj:Inter-forum bashing      Conf: (163) WRITING
.......................................................................
Hi, Darren.

DM< MN< We call it Internet.
DM< I thought there was something in the rules about making fun of
DM< other echoes. Does this not apply to other forums as well? Just
DM< curious.

Yes, on the first count, and probably the second as well. Echo bashing is more
likely to have a negative feedback because many of us are also active in other
echoes, and all the echoes are on a common net. There is more bleed over than
there is between separate nets, or so I surmise.

DM< I don't meant to jump on you, Michael, and I ask this in total
DM< honesty. I've seen many barbs about the Internet from this forum
DM< from several participants.

DM< Why has the Internet incurred such wrath in this forum?

Hmmmmm. Not wrath so as much as displeasure, I think. Some of our published
authors came to fidonet from Prodigy and Genie, but those moves were mostly
economy based.

I don't have any experience on Internet, and I keep meaning to go over to my
brother's and surf a bit of CompuServe on his account but I haven't yet gotten
around to doing that.

There are plenty of horror stories I've heard about Internet, though, and some
of them were reported in magazines and newspaper, not as idle gossip. I think
the biggest problem with the net is two fold. First: it looks like there is no
moderation as we practice it here in Fidonet, so lots of people get away with
posting all kinds of bad attitudes, and second: this is compounded by the nature
of messaging on the net.

Here in Fido we primarily use offline readers or point message bases, so we have
the luxury of writing a reply, saving it, then going back to editing it before
we fire it off in the REP packet. On Internet, a message can be written and
posted throughout the world within seconds of hitting the <ENTER> key.
There is no chance to go back over the message and maybe soften a line of attack
or adopt a more reasonable approach to an objectional statement. Leastways
that's my understanding.

If you watch some of the knee jerk reactions that end up in this public forum
you can well imagine that it must be worst in some (not all, of course), of the
Internet forums.

Then there is the habit in many forums of "welcoming" a newcomer by showering
sh*t and derision all over him or her.

I've developed the attitude that the difference between Internet and Fidonet is
the difference between inhabited and civilized. Internet is inhabited; Fidonet
is civilized. ;-)

• Artificial Intelligence: The other guy's opinion.
• Artificial Intelligence: Any person on my twit-list.
  --Michael Nellis
• Artificial Intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.

• Military Intelligence is a contradiction in terms.

Basically: The volume of the brain squared, divided by your shoe size, minus the number of times of foot in mouth (pedus per ossus) raised to the volume level of the voice in decibels = whatever.

I used it to figure out my I.Q.

(It's a negative number.)
--Michael Nellis, 06 Oct 1994

Saddam Hussein was sitting in his office wondering who to invade next when his telephone rang.

"Hallo! Mr. Hussein," a heavily accented voice said. "This is Paddy down in County Cavan, Ireland. I am ringing to inform you that we are officially declaring war on you."

"Well, Paddy," Saddam replied, "this is indeed important news. Tell me, how big is your army?"

"At this moment in time," said Paddy after a moment's calculation, "there is myself, my cousin Sean, my next door neighbor Gerry, and the entire dominoes team from the pub -- that makes eight."

Saddam sighed. "I must tell you, Paddy, that I have one million men in my army waiting to move on my command."

"Begorra!" said Paddy. "I'll have to ring you back."

Sure enough, the next day Paddy rang back. "Right, Mr. Hussein, the war is still on. We have managed to acquire some equipment."

"And what equipment would that be, Paddy?" asked Saddam.

"Well, we have two combine harvesters, a bulldozer and Murphy's tractor from the farm."

Once more Saddam sighed. "I must tell you, Paddy, that I have 16,000 tanks, 14,000 armored personnel carriers, and my army has increased to one and a half million since we last spoke."

"Really?" said Paddy. "I'll have to ring you back." Paddy rang again the next day. "Right, Mr. Hussein, the war is still on. We have managed to get ourselves airborne. We've modified Ted's ultra-light with a couple of rifles in the cockpit, and the bridge team has joined us as well."

Saddam was silent for a minute, then sighed. "I must tell you Paddy that I have 10,000 bombers, 20,000 MiG-19 attack planes, my military complex is surrounded by laser-guided surface-to-air missile sites, and since we last spoke, my army has increased to two million men."

"Faith and begorra!" said Paddy. "I'll have to ring you back." Sure enough, Paddy called again the next day. "Right, Mr. Hussein, I am sorry to tell you that we have had to call off the war."

"I'm sorry to hear that," said Saddam. "Why the sudden change of heart?"

"Well," said Paddy, "we've all had a chat, and there's no way we can feed two million prisoners."

1. Income Reduction Service.
2. Be audit you can be.
3. Did you ever notice: When you put the 2 words "The" and "IRS" together it spells "Theirs."

J

Quothe Ellen Johnson, president of American Atheists, "It's a way of demonizing court decisions that don't go their way, and that protect the rights of Atheists and even religious minorities. They don't talk about 'tyranny' when government meddles in people's personal lives in the name of religion, though."

Some people assume that slavery in America died with President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. But Lincoln lacked the power to enforce his edict in the Confederate-controlled South, and slaveowners in remote states like Texas continued to exploit their human chattel. For two and a half years, no one told the slaves that they were no longer a white man's property. Only when a regiment of Union soldiers arrived in Texas with news of slavery's demise - and the power to back it up - did Lincoln' s promise to African Americans come true.

While this 138-year-old tale might at first seem like ancient history, echoes of the Juneteenth story resonate in the struggles people of color face today. Getting rights on paper, Juneteenth reminds us, is a far cry from getting them in practice.

That's what makes Juneteenth so bittersweet. On the one hand, it honors a great advance for African Americans - gaining the rights of citizenship, especially the right to vote. But it also marks the beginning of an era in which whites imposed countless discriminatory laws, like poll taxes, literacy tests and grandfather clauses, meant to keep blacks powerless.
--Joseph 'Jazz' Hayden, 19 Jun 2003

K

[...]

Condon's movie does a splendid job of recreating the quasi-Victorian sexual politics of a time when people scarcely knew what to do or feel about their ungovernable sex drives. The film shows interview subjects startled to learn that babies do not emerge from the female bellybutton or that there's more than one position for coitus.

Kinsey is one of the inventors of our modern sex lives. He stands with Margaret Sanger, who agitated for birth control and backed research that gave us the pill by 1960 - which in turn gave us the unzipped sexual revolution and the bra-burning women's movement - and with Hugh Hefner, who 'fessed up and said flat out that, yup, he was hornier than a dog with two dicks and didn't care who knew it. If you've ever had a guilt-and-fear-free orgasm, you owe them all big time.

And because of that, the religious right still fear and despise Kinsey and his works.

[...]

At the dawn of a digitized, globalized millennium, these creeps want the clocks turned back to when the church held sway over our sexuality. They prefer us ignorant and terrified, alone in the dark, the better for them to control us through fear and guilt. Too bad for them that we live in the bright, vivid light of our incandescent dirty dreams.
--John Patterson, Moral Right Takes Us Back to Dark Ages of Sexuality, 05 dec 2004
[Also filed as ALFRED KINSEY: [DOCTOR] in Appendix 19]

Verb: 3. To use a kludge to get around a problem. "I've kludged around it for now, but I'll fix it up properly later."

[This word appears to have derived from Scots 'kludge' or 'kludgie' for a common toilet, via British military slang. It apparently became confused with U.S. kluge during or after World War II; some Britons from that era use both words in definably different ways, but kluge is now uncommon in Great Britain. 'Kludge' in Commonwealth hackish differs in meaning from 'kluge' in that it lacks the positive senses; a kludge is something no Commonwealth hacker wants to be associated too closely with. Also, 'kludge' is more widely known in British mainstream slang than 'kluge' is in the U.S.]
--A Word A Day [Linguaphile Web Site]

L

[2] Vegas, while never the most charming place on earth, did have its own particular flair and culture. I won't argue it was all joy and light, but at least it was different! Then So. Cal decided to depart So. Cal. en masse, and the first place they hit was Vegas. Now the place looks like Venice Blvd, you can't buy a decent price house, palm trees are shoved everywhere, and the place has all the distinct culture of a Nerf ball.
--Kestrel T'Rael, 12 Nov 2001

2) It is considered bad form to invite more than three exes per bride, no matter how close your friendships are now.

3) For a modern lesbian wedding, the best dyke should not be sporting a mullet.

4) For a traditional lesbian wedding, matching Birkenstocks and tie-dyed T-shirts are in order.

5) For the new age ceremony, it is customary that no more than five guests have any idea of what is going on at any given time.

6) The dogs of the family may act as the ring bearer and flower girl. The cats should be mentioned in the vows but are not required to attend, as it would disrupt their schedule of sleeping and washing. They will send tokens of affection in the forms of discrete tufts of cat hair strategically placed on the back of the bridal outfits.

7) It is considered bad luck to have your wedding on any day that is an anniversary of any previous relationship.

8) It is customary to have one scantily clad hottie in attendance that at least one half of your guests get in trouble for ogling.

9) The reception will be potluck. The dishes will include something that is 7-grain, something tofu, something with sprouts, and something so organic that it is completely unfit for human consumption. Most of the dishes will be vegetarian. The one meat dish will evaporate in 10 minutes or less.

10) In honor of your first wedding anniversary, the mother of either bride can divorce her alcoholic husband, move in with the lesbian pastor who married you and begin teaching pottery classes at the local community college.

1. I want some repairs done to my cooker as it has backfired and burnt my knob off.

2. I wish to complain that my father hurt his ankle very badly when he put his foot in the hole in his back passage.

3. And their 18 year old son is continually banging his balls against my fence.

4. I wish to report that the tiles are missing from the outside toilet roof. I think it was that bad wind the other night that blew them off.

5. I am writing on behalf of my sink, which is coming away from the wall.

6. Will you please send someone to mend the garden path, my wife tripped and fell on it yesterday and now she is pregnant?

7. I request permission to remove my drawers in the kitchen. 50% of the walls are damp, 50% have crumbling plaster and the rest are plain filthy.

8. The toilet is blocked and we cannot bath the children until it is cleared.

9. Will you please send a man to look at my water? It is a funny colour and not fit to drink.

10. Our lavatory seat is broken in half and is now in three pieces.

11. I want to complain about the farmer across the road, every morning at 6:00am his cock wakes me up and its now getting too much for me.

12. The man next door has a large erection in the garden, which is unsightly and dangerous.

13. Our kitchen floor is damp. We have two small children and would like a third so please send someone round to do something about it.

14. I am a single woman living in a downstairs flat and would you please do something about the noise made by the man I have on top of me every night.

15. Please send a man with the right tool to finish the job and satisfy my wife.

16. I have had the clerk of the works down on the floor six times but I still have had no satisfaction.

17. My bush is really overgrown round the front and my back passage has fung us in it.

18. He's got this huge tool that vibrates the whole house and I just can't take it any more.

[2] What follows is a superb example of British humour in A LETTER THAT WAS TRULY WRITTEN AND SENT. [Although that's what they all say. --Ed] The piece suggests two things:

1) Americans and Canadians are not the only ones who get poor service from their ISP, cable and/or alarm companies. (NTL is a cable operator in Britain).

2) The Brits probably write the world's best letters of complaint.

Dear Cretins:

I have been an NTL customer since 9th July 2001, when I signed up for your four-in-one deal for cable TV, cable modem, telephone, and alarm monitoring.

During this three-month period I have encountered inadequacy of service which I had not previously considered possible, as well as ignorance and stupidity of monolithic proportions.

Please allow me to provide specific details, so that you can either pursue your professional prerogative and seek to rectify these difficulties -- or more likely (I suspect) so that you can have some entertaining reading material as you whil e away the working day smoking B&H and drinking vendor-coffee on the bog in your office.

My initial installation was cancelled without warning, resulting in my spending an entire Saturday sitting on my fat arse waiting for your technician to arrive. When he did not arrive, I spent a further 57 minutes listening to your infuriating hold music, and the even more annoying Scottish robot woman telling me to look at your helpful website. HOW?

I alleviated the boredom by playing with my testicles for a few minutes -- an activity at which you are no doubt both familiar and highly adept. The rescheduled installation then took place some two weeks later, although the technician did forget to bring a number of vital tools -- such as a drill-bit, and his cerebrum.

Two weeks later, my cable modem had still not arrived. After 15 telephone calls over four weeks my modem arrived, six weeks after I had requested it -- and begun to pay for it. I estimate your internet server's downtime is roughly 35% -- the hours between about 6 pm and midnight, Monday through Friday, and most of the weekend. I am still waiting for my telephone connection.

I have made nine calls on my mobile to your no-help line, and have been unhelpfully transferred to a variety of disinterested individuals who are, it seems, also highly skilled bollock jugglers. I have been informed that a telephone line is available (and someone will call me back); that I will be transferred to someone who knows whether or not a telephone line is available (and then been cut off); that I will be transferred to someone (and then been redirected to an answering machine informing me that y our office is closed); that I will be transferred to someone and then been redirected to the irritating Scottish robot woman. And several other variations on this theme.

Doubtless you are no longer reading this letter, as you have at least a thousand other dissatisfied customers to ignore, and also another one of those crucially important testicle moments to attend to.

Frankly I don't care. It's far more satisfying as a customer to voice my frustrations in print than to shout them at your unending hold music. Forgive me, therefore, if I continue.

I thought British Telecom was shit; that they had attained the holy piss-pot of god-awful customer relations; and that no one, anywhere, ever, could be more disinterested, less helpful or more obstructive to delivering service to their customers. That's why I chose NTL, and because, well, there isn't anyone else is there?

How surprised I therefore was, when I discovered to my considerable dissatisfaction and disappointment what a useless shower of bastards you truly are. You are sputum-filled pieces of distended rectum incompetents of the highest order. BT -- wankers though they are -- shine like brilliant beacons of success in the filthy mire of your seemingly limitless inadequacy.

Suffice to say that I have now given up on my futile and foolhardy quest to receive any kind of service from you. I suggest that you cease any potential future attempts to extort payment from me for the services which you have so pointedly and catastrophically failed to deliver. Any such activity will be greeted initially with hilarity and disbelief and will quickly be replaced by derision, and even perhaps bemused rage.

I enclose two small deposits, selected with great care from my cat's litter tray, as an expression of my utter and complete contempt for both you and your pointless company. I sincerely hope that they have not become desiccated during transit -- they were satisfyingly moist at the time of posting, and I would feel considerable disappointment if you did not experience both their rich aroma and delicate texture. Consider them the very embodiment of my feelings towards NTL, and its worthless employees.

Have a nice day. May it be the last in your miserable short lives, you irritatingly incompetent and infuriatingly unhelpful bunch of twits.

[2] There may be nicer, smarter and better people than librarians somewhere, but I don't know who they could be. Could evil find a home with the wise, bright and dedicated folks who run the Belden Public Library in Cromwell? Please. With all its happy "Hats Off to Reading" signs and "Book Bingo" contests, such a place would be horrifying to the literary agents of the Dark Lord. For one thing, librarians (shhhhhh) turn on the lights to knowledge - and wriggly things fear the cleansing sunshine. They prefer to close down minds.
--Denis Horgan, op/ed piece in Hartford Courant, 17 Jul 2002

The American asked, "But what do you do with the rest of your time?"

"I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, and take a siesta with my wife. In the evenings, I go into the village to see my friends, have a few drinks, play the guitar, and sing a few songs. I have a full life."

The American interrupted, "I have an MBA from Harvard and I can help you! You should start by fishing longer every day. You can then sell the extra fish you catch. With the extra revenue, you can buy a bigger boat."

"And after that?" asked the Mexican.

"With the extra money the larger boat will bring, you can buy a second one and a third one and so on until you have an entire fleet of trawlers. Instead of selling your fish to a middle man, you can then negotiate directly with the processing plants and maybe even open your own plant. You can then leave this little village and move to Mexico City , Los Angeles , or even New York City ! From there you can direct your huge new enterprise."

"How long would that take?" asked the Mexican.

"Twenty, perhaps twenty-five years," replied the American.

"And after that?"

"Afterwards? Well my friend, that's when it gets really interesting," answered the American, laughing. "When your business gets really big, you can start buying and selling stocks and make millions!"

"Millions? Really? And after that?" asked the Mexican.

"After that you'll be able to retire, live in a tiny village near the coast, sleep late, play with your children, catch a few fish, take a siesta with your wife and spend your evenings drinking and enjoying your friends."

And the moral of this story is: Know where you're going in life; you might already be there.

Definitely an American derivation as the rhyme only works when "Z" is pronounced as "zee" instead of "zed". We won't go into the scansion.
--Unknown

M

One of the arenas where mandatory minimums have the most notable effect is in the war on drugs. These statutes institute draconian penalties for what many would see as relatively minor, victimless offenses like the mere possession of crack cocaine. The disparity in crack cocaine versus powder cocaine sentencing laws has been well-publicized. Only five grams of crack (the equivalent of five Sweet and Low packets) will get you a five year minimum sentence, whereas it takes 500 grams of powder cocaine for the same sentence, despite the fact that studies published in the Journal of the American Medical Association and elsewhere have determined that the two drugs are virtually identical in their effects. Needless to say, lower-income African-Americans are much more likely to be arrested for crack possession, while upper-income white people are more likely to be caught with powder.

Mandatory minimums are officially opposed by the National Association of Veteran Police Officers, the American Bar Association, the National Council of La Raza, the U.S. Sentencing Commission, each of the 11 federal judicial courts, former FBI director Louis Freeh, former Attorney General Edwin Meese and even former drug czar Barry McCaffrey, among others, [including a 27-judge panel headed by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist that unanimously voted to support the repeal of various provisions of the PRO TECT Act, which contains the Mandatory Minimums provision.]
--Kari Lydersen, Protect Us From the PROTECT Act, 13 Oct 2003

[1] Don't think of it as losing your independence, think of it as gaining subservience.
--Isaac Asimov to his then fiance Janet on finding her with a case of pre-wedding blues.

[2] A life long process during which you find out what kind of a man your wife would have preferred to have married.
--Gordie Tapp

[3]Marriage is not a word but a sentence.

[4]Marriage is the only institution that makes raving lunatics out of two perfectly sane people.

[5] A book of which the first chapter is written in poetry and the remaining chapters written in prose.
--Beverly Nichols, author
(see MARRIED COUPLE; MATRIMONY)

[2] In adults, masturbation is derogated as the default practice of the immature, undesirable, and desperate. In children, it represents everything grown-ups envy and dislike about the young: their dreaminess, hedonism, fidgetiness, solipsism, secrets, and endless excretion of slimy body fluids. As sex, it is disreputable. Not quite homosexual, but even less heterosexual, masturbation is extramarital, nonfamilial, nonprocreative, meaningless, and eminently casual. And it is antisocial.
--Judith Levine, Harmful to Minors, pg 184

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous "yes."

The professor then produced two cups of coffee from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed.

"Now," said the professor, as the laughter subsided, "I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life.

The golf balls are the important things-your God, family, your children, your health, your friends,and your favorite passions-things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.

The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house, and your car.

The sand is everything else-the small stuff.

"If you put the sand into the jar first," he continued, "there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you.

Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Play with your children. Take time to get medical checkups. Take your partner out to dinner. Play another 18. There will always be time to clean the house and fix the disposal."

Take care of the golf balls first, the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand."

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the coffee represented. The professor smiled. "I'm glad you asked. It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a couple of cups of coffee with a friend."

The astute timekeepers noticed that roughly twice every 12 lunar cycles, there was a day with equal hours of light and dark. These days, the vernal and autumnal equinoxes, marked time for the seasons. The time between one vernal equinox and the next told one solar year (or 365.24 days).

The trick was to make a calendar that had lunar months and a solar year. Not so easy, as lunar months don't fit evenly into solar years. The best compromise was to fit 12 lunar cycles (a little more than 354 days) into one solar cycle. But that left 11 solar days outside time. After just three years on a lunar calendar, the months were off by 33 days. Gradually, June froze over and November got downright sultry. And no one knew when Mother's Day was.

The only way to fit the solar and lunar calendars together was to intercalate, or to add extra days or months. The Romans, who were the best at many things, were the worst at this. They just tacked on a "leap month" after February every other year, called Mercedonius.

Everyone liked Mercedonius. People got another paycheck and could wait to pay off their debts. But the officials who were supposed to regulate when Mercedonius started and stopped gleefully abused the extra month, often using it for personal and political ends. Need to keep a friend in office? Want to postpone a project? Just manipulate Mercedonius!

It was great fun, but lousy timekeeping. [...]
--Claire Vail, KnowledgeNews newsletter, 02 Jan 2008

We were tall, short, thick, and painfully thin. We were single, partnered, parenting.... We were brown as chocolate syrup, pale as bourbon sauce. We wore leather and buttondowns, turtlenecks and "Keep Austin Weird" t-shirts. We wore cowboy boots and Birkenstocks. We drove up in battered VWs, honkin' SUVs, the family van, jacked-up pickup trucks, and the latest gas-hybrids. I suspect we were Methodists, Catholics, certainly Baptists and "Community Church" denominations, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, assorted Pagans (this IS Austin, after all). We were Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, and cares not to say. We were Engineers and Receptionists, Construction Workers and Techno Geeks ... not to mention cooks and waiters and checkers.... We were the retiree on his way through and the little kid who snuck a dirty spoon into Russ' pocket.

We ARE Karen and Kathy and Sharon. We ARE Russ and myself. We ARE my son, and my brothers, and my parents.

Going back to elementary school set theory, "Middle America" is the intersection of millions and millions of INDIVIDUALS. Only it's not the smooth arc of overlapping circles, but more something the dog threw up and then rolled in. And, yes, it's not even a static boundary, but an organic heaving, roiling chaos.

They're INDIVIDUALS who are struggling, moment to moment, to make the best and least hurtful choices, struggling to be mindful of the things they care about and, YES, the things others do, too, but limited by imagination and circumstance and the spin the agenda makers who misquote out of context so as to bully us all put on the facts. They are sometimes astonishingly saintly, sometimes appallingly sinful, usually in that unstable middle ground.... They're mystified at the utter contempt they're held in, certainly knowing themselves guilty of ignorance and mistakes, but no worse than that just thrown in our faces.

Consistency? Even the Republicans, which are all too disturbingly baldfaced lately in their quest for a homogenous platform quarrel like competing cats on the governmental stage.

Consistency!? Hell, I'd settle for a couple HOURS of consistency from THIS person. Button hole me? A Chinese knot has fewer twists.

It's so easy to rail at an amorphous THEM. But *I* refuse to hate a population. My contempt is personal -- if you must know, sometimes no farther than the face in the mirror.

So if you're going to hate. If you're going to be in such contempt of "Middle America" -- well then. Have my face. Have my husband's. Have my son's. Here we are.

And we're sorry the world is fucked up. And we're damned sorry for the part our ancestors played in that, and those who pretend to act on our behalf, and even our own fuck ups, of which we have a steady supply.

We're trying to do better. And we're trying to undo some of our past mistakes, too. Only, see, we don't have a very clear vision of what that is, either. And those that do, well, they seem to have simplified the "yeah, but what abouts" down a bit too far for us to swallow.

Grace upon us all. Because it's the only salvation we can hope for.
--Barb Jernigan, 06 Feb 2004

I can keep moderation in perspective: Step on the scales!
--Elizabeth Rhodes

smiled condescendingly. "That, my dear lady, is supposed to be a mother and her child."

"Well, then," snapped the little old lady, "why isn't it?"
(see ABSTRACT ART; ART)

The elder, who spoke only Navajo, asked, "What are these guys in the big suits doing?"

His son translated for the NASA people and one of the astronauts replied that they were practicing for a trip to the moon.

When the son relayed this comment, the Navajo elder got excited and asked if it would be possible to give the astronauts a message to deliver to the moon. Recognizing a promotional opportunity when he saw one, a NASA official accompanying the astronauts said, "Why certainly!" and told an underling to get a tape recorder.

The Navajo elder's comments into the microphone were brief. The NASA official asked the son if he would translate what his father had said, but the son laughed uproariously and refused. So, the NASA people took the tape to a nearby Navajo village and played it for other members of the tribe. They too laughed long and loudly, but also refused to translate the elder's message to the moon.

Finally, an official government translator was summoned. After he finally stopped laughing, the translator relayed the message. "Watch out for these assholes. They have come to steal your land!"

Please don't answer it without giving it some serious thought. By giving an honest answer you will be able to ascertain where you stand morally.

The test features an unlikely, completely fictional situation, where you will have to make a decision one way or the other. Remember that your answer should be honest, yet spontaneous.

Please scroll down slowly and consider each line - this is important for the test to work accurately.

You're in Florida. In Miami, to be exact. There is great chaos going on around you, caused by a hurricane and severe floods. There are huge masses of water all around you. You are an Associated Press photographer and you are in the middle of this great disaster. The situation is nearly hopeless.

You're trying to shoot very impressive photos. There are houses afloat around, people floating disappearing into the water. Nature is showing all its awesome power.

Suddenly you see a man in the water - he is fighting for his life, trying not to be taken away by the masses of water and mud. You move closer. Somehow the man looks familiar. Suddenly you know who it is - it's George W. Bush!

At the same time you notice that the raging waters are about to take him away, forever. You have two options. You can save him or you can take the best photo of your life. You can't do both. You can either save the life of George W. Bush, or you can shoot a Pulitzer Prize winning photo, a unique photo chronicling one of the world's most powerful men in a battle against the power of nature itself.

Here's the question (please give an honest answer):

• Not quite a mop, not quite a puppet.
  --Homer Simpson
• Muppets are my favorite weirdos
  --Barb Jernigan

N

Cut someone open and look for the broken nerves. They never show up.
--Dr. Wayne Dyer, Your Erroneous Zones, pg 19

New Year's Day - Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.
--Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)

"Who was that?" asked his wife.

"Just some drunk guy asking for a push," he answers.

"Did you help him?" she asks.

"No, I did not, it is three A.M. and raining out!"

"Well, you have a short memory," says his wife. "Can't you remember about three months ago when we broke down and those two guys helped us? I think you should help him, and you should be ashamed of yourself!"

The man does as he is told, gets dressed, and goes out into the pounding rain. He calls out into the dark, "Hello, are you still there?"

"Yes," comes back the answer.

"Do you still need a push?" calls out the husband.

"Yes, please!" comes the reply from the dark.

"Where are you?" asks the husband.

"Over here on the swing!" replies the drunk.

Or as the Pierson's Puppeteer said in Ringworld, "The majority is always sane, Luwee Wu."
--Michael Nellis, 19 Jan 1997

Other than that, all you need is an engineering workshop, and a pound of U235.

Be it noted, however, that atomic weapons are poorly designed for self-defense. They are too heavy to swing easily, so you can't use them to bludgeon an attacker, and detonating one within the confines of one's home to deter an intruder is likely to prove counter-productive.
--Michael Nellis, on the legality of private ownership of nuclear weapons; 07 Sep 1993

"No, I'm sorry", the nurse stated, "but for this reading, I can't use an oral thermometer." This started another round of complaining, but eventually he rolled over and bared his bottom. After feeling the nurse insert the thermometer, he heard her announce, "I have to get something. Now you stay just like that until I get back!" She left the door to his room open on her way out, and he cursed under his breath as he heard people walking past his door laughing. After almost an hour, the man's doctor came into the room.

"What's going on here?" asked the doctor.

Angrily, the man answers, "What's the matter, Doc? Haven't you ever seen someone having their temperature taken?"

"Yes," said the doctor. "But never with a carnation."

O

[2] A surplus gone to waist.

Actually, it is tourist season, but we still aren't allowed to shoot them. Being a creative bunch of hosers, however, we have come up with other ways to hunt tourists. The idea that Quebecers are the worst drivers in North America is just an urban legend promulgated by the survivors.
--Michael Nellis
(see MENTAL TOURIST; PRAYER FOR ~)

A grenade is perfect when a grenade is called for.
--Clayton McKee, 11 Dec 1995

A: 10 little piggies, 2 calves, 1 ass, and an unknown number of hares.

(Not to mention one or the other of two animal-name, slang innuendoes for certain somethings.)

[2] Patriotism assumes that our globe is divided into little spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate. Those who had the fortune of being born on some particular spot, consider themselves better, nobler, grander, more intelligent than the living beings inhabiting any other spot. It is, therefore, the duty of everyone living on that chosen spot to fight, kill, and die in the attempt to impose his superiority upon all others.
--Emma Goldman

[3] The very existence of the State demands that there be some privileged class vitally interested in maintaining that existence. And it is precisely the group interests of that class that are called patriotism.
--Michael Bakunin

People who didn't need people needed people around to know that they were the kind of people who didn't need people.
--Terry Prachett, Maskerade
(see PERSONALITIES in Appendix 19)

• perversion of sex: Insistence upon perfect coordination and integration of preference, love, and response. Using sex as a weapon.
• perversion of anger: Self-hate, depression, psychomatic illness, and sullen coldness.
• perversion of truth: Using "the truth" to hurt or destroy.
• perversion of love: The belief that love makes for total understanding and resolves all problems in a relationship.

Our turn finally came a good three hours later, whereupon we spent another 45 minutes having our carry-on luggage examined and re-examined, answering the same questions again and again, and waiting while security checked and re-checked their computer database. All this over a graduate student from Egypt, married to an American citizen, during a time when world politics were calm enough that Bill Clinton's main preoccupation was rubbing lipstick smudges off his fly.
--Laura Fokkena, 22 NOv 2002, and reprinted at Alternet.org

Not in our name will you wage endless war there can be no more deaths no more transfusions of blood for oil

Not in our name will you invade countries bomb civilians, kill more children letting history take its course over the graves of the nameless

Not in our name will you erode the very freedoms you have claimed to fight for

Not by our hands will we supply weapons and funding for the annihilation of families on foreign soil

Not by our mouths will we let fear silence us

Not by our hearts will we allow whole peoples or countries to be deemed evil

Not by our will and Not in our name

We pledge resistance

We pledge alliance with those who have come under attack for voicing opposition to the war or for their religion or ethnicity

We pledge to make common cause with the people of the world to bring about justice, freedom and peace

Another world is possible and we pledge to make it real.
--Not In Our Name, anti-Iraq-war peace activism group

However, to be a poet in WRITING is to be toast.
--Michael Nellis

[2] Somebody or other wrote in a message to All over in Writing echo:
DB> i will probAbly Ask questions from time to time. this is non stop
DB> isnt it, i'm reAl excited. i wAnt to lAnd A deAl And go in to
DB> work one dAy hAve my personAl bAnd plAy 'tAke this little
DB> secretAriAl gig And shove it, o yeAh, i used to love it, but now
DB> i'm A writer And i'm so rich i'm Above it -- so tAke this gig And
DB> shove it' o, me, i'm 38 AfricAn AmericAn femAle (will be glAd
DB> when winnie send me the new keyboArd) i'm A mArried, sepArAted
DB> lesbiAn, with 2 kidz, i live in suitlAnd, md. And i gottA go cook
DB> din din...lAter

Wow.

I don't think you can get more politically correct than that.

A semiliterate, middle aged, wannabe, black lesbian with two
children, and a busted keyboard who is separated from her hubby.

This one is so implausible I won't even touch it with somebody else's ten foot pole.
--Fang-Face DreamWeaver, 22 Jun 1995

• Eroticism is using a feather; pornography is using the whole chicken.
• Anything that gives the judge an erection.
• Pornography should be illegal -- but what is it?

[2] The traditional Erotic Literary market has been men who are bored and lonely. Many are basically incapable of physical lovemaking without extreme measures. Others are so undesirable that they have no physical outlet to satisfy Eros.

Pornography is a product for these fools.
--Erich Angell, 01 Jul 1997

You do realize, don't you, that they only use the horses to quick compost the mail that should have gone to folks who died in the interim?
--Michael Nellis

But it cannot make an idiot into Einstein.
--R Clayton McKee, 11 Dec 2007

"Well, it's a convincing argument."
--Richard Colin Ames Campbell, Cat Who Walks Through Walls, pg 218

If you are obsessive-compulsive, please press 1 repeatedly.

If you are co-dependent, 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.

This is a story about a girl. While at the funeral of her own mother, she met this guy whom she did not know. She thought this guy was amazing; she believed him to be so much her dream guy that she fell in love with him, but never asked for his number. A few days later, this girl killed her own sister.

Question: What is her motive in killing her sister?

Give this some thought for a while before you click the link to the answer. Your first thought is what counts here.

For the answer, click and drag your mouse from star to star.

Q

R

Rankism. In kindergarten, I was put behind the piano on parents' visiting day for some minor infraction. My mother had to ask where I was and, even then, the teacher wouldn't let me out.

Later in life, as an ex-college president I noticed that many whom I thought were friends didn't return my calls, or no longer kept their promises to me, once I lost my title. Racism is in the dictionary. It means race-based abuse and discrimination. Sexism is in the dictionary. It's gender-based abuse and discrimination. Rankism isn't in the dictionary, but it should be because it's as pervasive and as damaging as the familiar "isms".

"Rankism" is the abuse of the power inherent in rank. Rankism happens every day: a teacher humiliates a student, a boss harasses an employee, a cleric abuses a parishioner, a guard degrades a prisoner, one group of people discriminates against another.

Rank in itself is not necessarily a bad thing. Pilots, professors, politicians - many people have earned their rank and use it to serve others. However, others "pull rank", using their status to diminish, even exploit, others. That's rankism. A dignitarian society is one that disallows rankism.
--Robert W. Fuller, taught at Columbia University and served as president of Oberlin College

Area : Writing
Date : Dec 08 '95, 23:39
From : Carl Thames
To  : All
Subj : Handling Rejection
..........................................................................

Forwarded Message from Cathy Griffin ... (With modifications by Carl Thames)

SUBJ: How to Properly Handle Rejection

December 10, 1995

Mr./Ms. Editor Noname Publishing Company 12345 Sixth Street, Suite 7 New York,
NY 10001

Dear Editor,

Thank for your letter of December 1. After careful consideration, I regret to
inform you that I am unable to accept your refusal to offer me a contract for my
book, THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL_.

This year I have been particularly fortunate in receiving an unusually large
number of rejection letters. With such a varied and promising field of
candidates it is impossible for me to accept all refusals.

Despite Noname's outstanding qualifications and previous experience in rejecting
manuscripts, I find that your rejection does not meet my needs at this time.
Therefore, I will expect your contract by return mail. We will negotiate the
details at that time. I look forward to working with your company.

Best of luck in rejecting future manuscripts.

Sincerely, 

Poor Mort Tolson, computers were OUT to get him (which is really bad when you're making a living as a tech writer). Of course, if there was a wrong way to do something, Mort would find it. Was a command in Unix to split files (probably was "splitfile") -- not inexplicably, Mort thought like a user/writer, and figured the number you enter is the number of chunks you want. So he splitfile filename 4. Only, being written by COMPUTER programmers, the numeric was for number of lines.... Mort's little misunderstanding brought down the VAX mainframe. [Not the first, nor the last, time....]

Last I heard, the technology's vendetta caused Mort to have a near-fatal heart attack, and he changed careers.
--Barb Jernigan

Because that is the [political] district in which the people are hag ridden by that particular demon.
--Fang-Face DreamWeaver

"Sensible. Russian Roulette lacks appeal."
--Zebediah Carter to Jacob Burroughs, The Number Of The Beast, pg 149

S

[1]Don't guess -- check your security regulations.

[2]There's safety in numbers:

• .44 Magnum
• .38 special
• 9mm w/18 rounds

I was flipping through the old ENCYCLOPEDIA INTERNATIONAL and came across the following:

SCHIZOID PERSONALITY: "Psychiatric term used to describe a personality pattern marked by withdrawal from society and a tendency to cultivate the inner rather than the social life. The schizoid is usually a timid and sensitive person whose feelings are easily bruised. He may substitute books, ideas, and artistic satisfactions for human contacts. [...] Some schizoids are highly gifted persons who are artistically and intellectually creative. Others, more mororse and sullen, may be so disagreeable that nor mal people shun them."

Is it just me, or does this read like a job description for a creative writer? Hmmm, why is it you never see THAT in those ads? i.e. "Creative Writing: It's not just a career, it's also a Personality Disorder!" <g> I guess Writer's Digest just hasn't gotten around to it yet, eh?
--Carl Thames (see CRAZY)

[2] The catch is that most people do not understand the relationship between the terms "science" and "fiction." As a result, the term sci-fi is usually used by drooling, subliterate morons of that class of humanity called "critics".

The proper context of the "fiction" portion of the label science fiction is an indication that the work in question contains characters, situations, and settings, which are not true to fact. Such stories are fiction because the people in the stories do not exist as living, breathing beings in this space-time continuum -- no more than the characters in a Romantic fiction are living people.

The "science" portion of the label results from the setting for the fictitious story. Such settings are usually in the future, and might or might not make use of or depend on technologies or scientific advances we do not have.

However, the science in science fiction must be true to the principles by which this universe operates, or, if based on principles and advances made up out of whole cloth, they must operate in a manner consistent with those principles.

If the science in the story does not conform to those parameters, then it is not, strictly speaking, science fiction, it is science fantasy: Technologized fairy tales. Usually poorly done fairy tales. The most recent Star Trek series are proof of that.

Badly done science fantasy is the result of people whose attitude is: "It [the science] doesn't have to be real because it's science fiction." Such people often make the technology and science the central theme of their stories, without making an effort to get the science right, and they dismiss their sloppy work with that attitude as well as by saying, "It's artistic licence."

It is for that reason, in large part, I am currently foaming ectoplasm from all orifices with Chris Kling over the subject of the film Starship Troopers. It is exactly that kind of sloppy work.

To synopsize the entirety of the above rant, a quote from my files:

Balls. All the pretty postulates and hypotheses and ultra-new technology ain't worth a fart in a fusion jet without people, some kind of people, to make things happen. I couldn't think of anything more dreary than to write up all the off the wall ideas I get as technical manuals; and let it be noted that the ideas I get which involve hard science are invariably the result of some character or other messing around where she hadn't ought to be.

The hard science in science fiction is just as likely to be nothing more than a vehicle to establish setting.
--Michael Nellis, 21 Jan 1997

At any rate, those attitudes and the popular misusage of the term sci-fi have stigmatized it so that it is looked down on with some irritation by those of us in the biz, and especially many editors and publishers.
--Michael Nellis, 21 Nov 1997
(see SAGAN-TYPE QUESTION; SCI-FI; SPECULATIVE FICTION; SPECIFICATIONS FOR THE SIMON-PURE SCIENCE FICTION STORY)

The term "sci-fi" has a long and bloody history. It was created by long-time fan Forrest J. Ackerman. Most of the rest of organized fandom hated it instantly. Obviously, Forry has in many senses won, since "sci-fi" is synonymous with science fiction to most of the general public. However, most of the SF community -- that is, editors, publishers, writers, and organized fandom do not like the term. To many of us it symbolizes the derision heaped on us in our youth for reading "that sci-fi stuff" (or "that crazy Buck Rogers stuff"). Pointless debates on this subject have raged through the SF echo many times; people seem to think we're making this up. We're not, it's quite real.
--Beth Friedman, SF echo Moderator, 25 Nov 1997
(see SAGAN-TYPE QUESTION; SCIENCE FICTION; SPECULATIVE FICTION)

Tony is confused so he just grins and moves on to the next patient and greeted him.

This patient responded: "Some hae meat and canna eat, And some wad eat that want it, But we hae meat and we can eat, So let the Lord be thankit."

Even more confused, but trying not to show it, Tony moved on to the next patient, who immediately begins to chant: "We sleekit, cowerin, timrous beasty, Thou needna start awa sae hastie, Wi bickering brattle."

Now alarmed, Tony turns to the accompanying doctor and asked "What kind of facility is this? Is it a mental ward?"

"No", replied the doctor. "This is the serious Burns unit".

Shake it more than twice and you're playing with it.
--Michael Nellis, quoting what is probably an ancient persiflage

And if you're very very good and very very smart and very VERY lucky, someday you may even get to decide which 12 hours that is. . . .

[2] Make sure your speakers are plugged in and turned up, then click this link to load a self-image assessment site.

Why should they? Innovation frequently tanks, but people line up down the block for a week to see most movies with a III or V in their titles. Guaranteed audience, guaranteed payback, no significant risk.

Imagination is simply too uncertain... it might not be profitable. Can't have that.
--R. Clayton McKee, 05 Dec 2004

Then I heard these terms which reference the word SERVICE:

• Internal Revenue Service
• Postal Service
• Telephone Service
• Civil Service
• City & County Public Service
• Customer Service
• Service Stations

Then I became confused about the word "service ." This is not what I thought "service" meant.

So today, I overheard two farmers talking, and one of them said he had hired a bull to "service " a few of his cows. BAM! It all came into perspective. Now I understand what all those "service" agencies are doing to us.

I hope you now are as enlightened as I am.

As the stuff was stored below decks in bundles you can see what could (and did) happen. Methane began to build up below decks and the first time someone came below at night with a lantern, BOOOOM! Several ships were destroyed in this manner before it was determined just what was happening.

After that, the bundles of manure were always stamped with the term "Ship High In Transit" on them which meant for the sailors to stow it high enough off the lower decks so that any water that came into the hold would not touch this volatile cargo and start the production of methane.

Thus evolved the term "S.H.I.T" (Ship High In Transport), which has come down through the centuries and is in use to this very day.

Does it pass the test of sportsmanship? In other words, if everyone followed this same course of action would the results be beneficial for all?

Where will your plan of action lead? How will it affect others? What will it do to you?

Will you think well of yourself when you look back at what you have done?

Try to separate yourself from the problem. Pretend, for one moment, it is the problem of the person you msot admire. Ask yoursel how that person would handle it.

Hold up the decision to the glaring light of publicity. Would you want your family and friends to know what you have done? The decisions we make in the hope that no one will find out are usually wrong.
--Dr. Preston Bradley paraphrasing of Harry Emerson Fosdick's six point test for deciding right from wrong, quoted in Constructing A Life Philosophy: Opposing Viewpoints, pg 166

The Sixteen Words were considered in the post-Iraq invasion period to be the most grave propaganda ploy used by George Bush jr. to justify the invasion of Iraq, and they were apparently uttered in the full knowledge that the claim Hussein sought uranium was based on documents that had been revealed as a forgery by a U.S. official a year before George Bush jr. uttered those words. While some people claim the utterance was technically correct, the deliberate withholding of that information renders the utterance a deception in toto.

[2] The Karmic Payback for inadequate caffeine intake.

This school of "investigation" is still very active today; sneering at and attacking anything that does not fit their notions of main stream science. One of the most notorious was Doctor Donald Menzel, who, on being unable to come up with a rational explanation for his own sighting of an anamolous atmospheric phenomenon, simply explained it away with a rationale that was not supported by the facts he had reported. Which established the pattern with which he dismissed all such claims on behalf of the U.S. Government vis a vis Project Blue Book. Some of his claims were so outrageous that they were attacked with equal fervour by atmospheric phycists. Who debunked Menzel's "explanations" in every case merely by presenting the facts.

From my personal experience with Skeptix, I have concluded that they are no different from religious fundamentalist, at whom they particularly enjoying sneering as "FTBs", or Foaming True Believers. This opinion was later supported by Doctor Rupert Sheldrake who characterized them as scientific fundamentalists.
(See CYNICISM; SCEPTICISM; also ZEN...AND THE ART OF DEBUNKERY, Appendix 20)

[2] There is no such thing as a solution, merely a matter of trading one set of problems for another.

Beneath the hilarity, the movie is a scathing social parable in which desperate, paranoid grown-ups who long for an impossibly sanitized environmnet go collectively crazy to the point that they're willing to bring on World War III. And what are they so afraid of? Just some dumb off-color humour about bodily functions.

The wedding day was fast approaching. Everything was ready, and nothing could dampen Jennifer's excitement, not even her parents' nasty divorce. Her mother, Sheila, had found the PERFECT dress to wear and would be best dressed mother-of-the-bride EVER!

A week later, Jennifer was horrified to learn her father's new young wife, Barb, had purchased the exact same dress! She asked Barb to exchange the dress, but Barb refused. "Absolutely not! I'm wearing this dress. I look like a million bucks in it!"

Jennifer told her mother, who graciously replied, "Never mind, Sweetheart, I'll get another dress. After all, it's YOUR special day."

Two weeks later Jennifer and her mother went shopping and found another awesome dress. When they stopped for lunch, Jennifer asked her mother, "What are you going to do with the first dress? Maybe you should return it. You really don't have any place to wear it."

Sheila grinned and replied, "Of course, I do, Dear! I'm wearing it to the rehearsal dinner!"

1: Barbituates.

2: Someone smacks 'em up alongside the head with a big monkey wrench.

3: Like all the other reptiles they become torpid when the air cools off.

4: Because I haven't found out where they live yet. If I ever find out, they'll stop. Permanently.

Hey, mi chiquita! You bet! We Spanish Armada than Hell!
--Fang-Face DreamWeaver (Written during the Grand Banks Turbot Wars.)

At that time, "Spy TV" was hosted smarmily by "Ed"'s Michael Ian Black. He was shown slinking from place to place in a special spy van rigged with lots of monitors, blinking consoles and surveillance equipment. Ostensibly Black and his buds would go on location playing pranks on unsuspecting members of the public.

It became obvious at once that the tone of Endemol's show differed profoundly from that of Funt's. Where the ploys of "Candid Camera" featured imaginative premises, "Spy TV" relied on sensational spectacle. Where Funt and company made a gentle, joyful study of human nature, "Spy TV" made its victims look foolish or pathetic. Much of the time, it also came close to giving them heart attacks.

And that's not just my opinion. It's company policy.
--Rick Kisonak, Seven Days, September 27, 2002

Pack up your tribbles in your old grain bin,
And smile -- smile -- smile.
Mop up the barroom with a Klingon's grin,
And smile, boys, all the while.
--Fang-Face DreamWeaver

Pardon me boy,
is this the Quatrotriticale?
Bin twentynine,
oh, damn the tribbles' got mine....
--Barb, where they'll be no TRIBBLE at all..., gumbie cat (Jernigan)

The list of what's either wrong or doubtful about this system is nearly endless. The Union of Concerned Scientists points out we have no evidence it will ever be able to distinguish between warheads and weather balloons. The New Yorker notes that none of our enemies have ICBMs and we are trying "to protect a nation from terrorists with box cutters and suitcase bombs."
--Molly Ivins, Our Petulant President, 07 Oct 2004

A lecturer was giving a lecture to his student on stress management. He raised a glass of water and asked the audience, "How heavy do you think this glass of water is?"

The students' answers ranged from 20g to 500gm.

"It does not matter on the absolute weight. It depends on how long you hold it.

"If I hold it for a minute, it is OK.

"If I hold it for an hour, I will have an ache in my right arm.

"If I hold it for a day, you will have to call an ambulance.

"It is the exact same weight, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes.

"If we carry our burdens all the time, sooner or later, we will not be able to carry on, the burden becoming increasingly heavier.

"What you have to do is to put the glass down, rest for a while before holding it up again."

We have to put down the burden periodically, so that we can be refreshed and are able to carry on.

So before you return home from work tonight, put the burden of work down. Don't carry it back home. You can pick it up tomorrow.

Whatever burdens you are having now on your shoulders, let it down for a moment if you can.

Pick it up again later when you have rested...

Rest and relax.

Life is short, enjoy it!!

T

All of this, of course, was taken as a sign of weakness, if not heathenism, and Columbus, being a righteous European was convinced the people should be "made to work, sow and do all that is necessary to adopt our ways." [...]

Columbus kidnapped ten of his friendly Taino hosts and carried them off to Spain, where they could be introduced to the white man's ways. One of them died soon after arriving there, but not before he was baptized a Christian. The Spaniards were so pleased that they had made it possible for the first Indian to enter heaven that they hastened to spread the good news throughout the West Indies.

The Tainos and Arawak people did not resist conversion to the European's religion, but they did resist strongly when hordes of these bearded strangers began scouring their islands in search of gold and precious stones. The Spaniards looted and burned villages; they kidnapped hundreds of men, women, and children and shipped them to Europe to be sold as slaves, and Arawak resistance brought on the use of guns and sabers, and whole tribes destroyed, hundreds of thousands of people in less than a decade after Columbus set foot on the beach of San Salvador, October 12, 1492.
--Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee, pg 1/2

[2] It's frustrating for me, seeing guys making millions of dollars who don't give 100 per cent every night. There's something missing, and I don't like to see that.

I was always a proud player and I played for a proud team. We were also close, like a big family. When I hear guys say that team spirit is not important, and that you can win without it, I don't think so.

I wouldn't keep a guy who thinks like that on my team, just as I wouldn't keep an employee who thinks like that. It doesn't matter how much talent you have, if you don't play as a team, forget it. You won't succeed.
--Guy Lafleur, playoff contender thirteen years straight and five time Stanley Cup winner, all with the Montreal Canadiens, printed in an article 25 Mar 2003

Encroachment. (Sure as Hell ain't progress.)
--Michael Nellis

Throw kid on school bus, put toothpicks in eyes, and I'm all set for the day.
--Yankee Rose, 19 Jun 2000

You're much cuter than vomit, dear. Though sometimes you're slightly more trying. <gg>
--Kathy Wilson

=================================================================
BBS: Bab-O-Manie
Date: 02-18-95 (07:39)
From: MICHAEL NELLIS
To: STEPHANE B.GAUTIER
Subj: test                Conf: (179) BARDROOM
.................................................................

SB> Hello,

Hello.

SB> This be just a test.

You have failed to breach security on the National Emergency Broadcast System.
Please note that your computer cracking was not noticed by any person, living or
dead, real or imagined, who might now or might have ever inhabited what is
euphemistically refered to as the Real World. 

My feet are both blistered, I've got cramps in my legs.
The cat just knocked over a bowl full of eggs.
There's a knock at the door and the telephone's ringing;
frosting drips on the floor as the microwave's dinging.
Two pies in the oven, dessert's almost done;
my cookbook is soiled with butter and crumbs.

I've had all I can stand, I can't take anymore;
Then in walks my husband, spilling rum on the floor.
He weaves and he wobbles, his balance unsteady;
then grins as he chuckles "The eggnog is ready !"
He looks all around and with total regret,
says "What's taking so long....aren't you through in here yet ??"

As quick as a flash I reach for a knife;
He loses an earlobe; I wanted his life !
He flees from the room in terror and pain
and screams "MY GOD WOMAN, YOU'RE GOING INSANE!!"
Now what was I doing, and what is that smell ?
Oh, darn, it's the pies !! They're burned all to hell

I hate to admit when I make a mistake,
but I put them on BROIL instead of on BAKE.
What else can go wrong ?? Is there still more ahead ??
If this is good living, I'd rather be dead.
Lord, don't get me wrong, I love holidays;
It just leaves me exhausted, all shaky and dazed.

But I promise you one thing, If I live till next year,
You won't find me pulling my hair out in here.
I'll hire a maid, a cook, and a waiter;
and if that doesn't work, I'LL HAVE IT ALL CATERED!! [2] A Thanksgiving Poem

'Twas The Night Of Thanksgiving, but I Just Couldn't Sleep.
I Tried Counting Backwards, I Tried Counting Sheep.
The Leftovers Beckoned - The Dark Meat And White,
But I Fought The Temptation With All Of My Might.

Tossing And Turning With Anticipation,
The Thought Of A Snack Became Infatuation.
So, I Raced To The Kitchen, Flung Open The Door
And Gazed At The Fridge, Full Of Goodies Galore.

I Gobbled Up Turkey And Buttered Potatoes,
Pickles And Carrots, Beans And Tomatoes.
I Felt Myself Swelling So Plump And So Round,
'Til All Of A Sudden, I Rose Off The Ground.

I Crashed Through The Ceiling, Floating Into The Sky
With A Mouthful Of Pudding And A Handful Of Pie.
But, I Managed To Yell As I Soared Past The Trees
Happy Eating To All - Pass The Cranberries, Please.

May Your Stuffing Be Tasty, May Your Turkey Be Plump.
May Your Potatoes! 'N Gravy Have Nary A Lump,
May Your Yams Be Delicious May Your Pies Take The Prize,
May Your Thanksgiving Dinner Stay Off Of Your Thighs.
--Unknown

Mostly, they is my projected tyrannical self, who manages to get out of hand now and then. But sometimes they is only the weatherman.
--Theodore Isaac Rubin, M.D., Love Me, Love My Fool, pg 14
(see INSTITUTE OF THEY)

[2] ... Time is not a river as Einstein theorized -- it's a big fucking buffalo herd that runs us down and eventually mashes us into the ground, dead and bleeding, with a hearing-aid plugged into one ear and a colostomy bag instead of a .44 clapped on one leg.
--Stephen King, Danse Macabre, pg 109/110

[3]Time's fun when you're having flies.
--Kermit the Frog

In keeping with the post-World Trade Center tragedy movement to thoroughly destroy the rights and freedoms protected by the U.S. Bill of Rights, the head of this Office is John Poindexter, once convicted on five felony counts of misleading congress, and a man who patently believes that he is not even accountable to his Commander in Chief. He was appointed by George Bush Jr and later described by White House spokesman and presidential lackey Ari Fleischer as, "Somebody who this administration thinks is an outstanding American, an outstanding citizen, who has done a very good job in what he has done for our country."

[Addendum: Due to the controversy generated by the name and purpose of this body, it was renamed to Terrorism Information Awareness Office. —MN]

They sit in sad remembrance,
Of wasted days gone by,
And curse their life for what it was,
And hang their head and cry.

But I don't concern myself with that,
I took a different vent,
I look forward to what life holds,
And not what has been spent.

So strap me to the engine,
As securely as I can be,
I want to be out on the front,
To see what I can see.

I want to feel the winds of change,
Blowing in my face,
I want to see what life unfolds,
As I move from place to place.

I want to see what's coming up,
Not looking at the past,
Life's too short for yesterdays,
It moves along too fast.

So if the ride gets bumpy,
While you are looking back,
Go up front, and you may find,
Your life has jumped the track.

It's all right to remember,
That's part of history,
But up front's where it's happening,
There's so much mystery.

The enjoyment of living,
Is not where we have been,
It's looking ever forward,
To another year and ten.

It's searching all the byways,
Never should you refrain,
For if you want to live your life,
You gotta drive the train.

U

If I really wanted to make a DVOTWAHTRPOYH tour, all I'd need to do is just dress in a plaid polyester suite with a nametag that read, "I'm An Ugly American". Usually does the trick.
--Bob Bonomi

A: Because it comes with attachments.

Love may be beautiful, love may be bliss
but I only slept with you because I was pissed.

I thought that I could love no other
Until, that is, I met your brother

Roses are red, violets are blue,
sugar is sweet, and so are you.

But the roses are wilting, the violets are dead,
the sugar bowl's empty, and so is your head.

Of loving beauty you float with grace
If only you could hide your face

Kind, intelligent, loving and hot
This describes everything you are not

I want to feel your sweet embrace
But don't take that paper bag off of your face

I love your smile, your face, and your eyes
Damn, I'm good at telling lies!

My darling, my lover, my beautiful wife:
Marrying you has screwed up my life

I see your face when I am dreaming
That's why I always wake up screaming

My love you take my breath away
What have you stepped in to smell this way?

My feelings for you no words can tell
Except for maybe "go to hell"

What inspired this amorous rhyme?
Two parts vodka, one part lime.

Waiter: And what'll it be, boys?

Vampire 1: I'll have a pint of blood, please.

Vampire 2: Sounds good. One pint of blood for me, too.

Vampire 3: Hmm ... I feel like a pint of plasma, today, thanks.

Waiter (yelling to bartender): That'll be two bloods and a blood lite!
--attrib. Rick McFarlane

[2] I am not a vegetarian because I love animals; I am a vegetarian because I hate plants.
--A. Whitney Brown

[2] What's the difference between a hormone and a vitamin? You can't make a vita min.

W

In Prison:			At Work:
you spend the majority of your time in an 8 X 10 cell			you spend the majority of your time in a 6 X 8 cubicle
you get three meals a day			you only get a break for one meal and you pay for it
you get time off for good behavior			you get more work for good behavior
the guard locks and unlocks all the doors for you			you must carry around a security card and open all the doors for yourself
you get your own toilet			you have to share with some idiot who pees on the seat
all expenses are paid by the taxpayers with no work required			you get to pay all the expenses to go to work and then they deduct taxes from your salary to pay for prisoners
you spend most of your life inside bars wanting to get out			you spend most of your time wanting to get out and go inside bars
you must deal with sadistic wardens			they are called managers

In a lengthy examination in the Columbia Journalism Review, Trudy Lieberman found six dozen examples of disputed Journal editorials and op-eds. She discovered that "on subjects ranging from lawyers, judges, and product liability suits to campus and social issues, a strong America, and of course, economics, we found a consistent pattern of incorrect facts, ignored or incomplete facts, missing facts, uncorroborated facts." In many of these cases, the editors refused to print a correction, preferring to allow the aggrieved party to write a letter to the editor, which would be printed much later, and then let the reader decide whose version appeared more credible. Almost never does the paper correct the record or admit its errors.
--Eric Alterman, PBS Adds Insult to Injury, The Nation, 17 Aug 2004