powered by FreeFind (the ads are theirs).

Home > Time Out > The Lighter Side > 1999 Archive

The 1999 archive.

Important Lesson for Life

During my second month of nursing school, our professor gave us a pop quiz. I was a conscientious student and had breezed through the questions, until I read the last one: "What is the first name of the woman who cleans the school?"

Surely, this was some kind of joke.  I had seen the cleaning woman several times. She was tall, dark-haired and in her 50s, but how would I know her name? I handed in my paper, leaving the last question blank. Just before class ended, one student asked if the last question would count toward our quiz grade.

"Absolutely," said the professor.  "In your careers, you will meet many people.  All are significant.  They deserve your attention and care, even if all you do is smile and say 'hello'." I've never forgotten that lesson.  I also learned her name was Dorothy.

*****

One night, at 11:30 PM, an older African American woman was standing on the side of an Alabama highway trying to endure a lashing rainstorm. Her car had broken down and she desperately needed a ride. Soaking wet, she decided to flag down the next car.

A young white man stopped to help her, generally unheard of in those conflict-filled 1960s. The man took her to safety, helped her get assistance and put her into a taxicab.   She seemed to be in a big hurry, but wrote down his address and thanked him.

Seven days went by and a knock came on the man's door.  To his surprise, a giant console color TV was delivered to his home.  A special note was attached.  It read: "Thank you so much for assisting me on the highway the other night.  The rain drenched not only my clothes, but also my spirits. Then you came along.  Because of you, I was able to make it to my dying husband's bedside just before he passed away.   God bless you for helping me and unselfishly serving others. Sincerely,  Mrs. Nat King Cole. "

*****

In the days when an ice cream sundae cost much less, a 10-year-old boy entered a hotel coffee shop and sat at a table.  A waitress put a glass of water in front of him.   "How much is an ice cream sundae?" he asked.

"Fifty cents," replied the waitress.

The little boy pulled his hand out of his pocket and studied the coins in it. "Well, how much is a plain dish of ice cream?" he inquired. By now, more people were waiting for a table and the waitress was growing impatient.

"Thirty-five cents," she brusquely replied.

The little boy again counted his coins. "I'll have the plain ice cream," he said.

The waitress brought the ice cream, put the bill on the table and walked away.   The boy finished the ice cream, paid the cashier and left. When the waitress came back, she began to cry as she wiped down the table. There, placed neatly beside the empty dish, were two nickels and five pennies. You see, he couldn't have the sundae, because he had to have enough left to leave her a tip.

*****

In ancient times, a King had a boulder placed on a roadway.  Then he hid himself and watched to see if anyone would remove the huge rock.  Some of the king's wealthiest merchants and courtiers came by and simply walked around it.  Many loudly blamed the king for not keeping the roads clear, but none did anything about getting the stone out of the way.

Then a peasant came along carrying a load of vegetables.  Upon approaching the boulder, the peasant laid down his burden and tried to move the stone to the side of the road.  After much pushing and straining, he finally succeeded.

After the peasant picked up his load of vegetables, he noticed a purse lying in the road where the boulder had been. The purse contained many gold coins and a
note from the king indicating that the gold was for the person who removed the boulder from the roadway. The peasant learned what many of us never understand. Every obstacle presents an opportunity to improve our condition.

*****

Many years ago, when I worked as a volunteer at a hospital, I got to know a little girl named Liz who was suffering from a rare and serious disease. Her only chance of recovery appeared to be a blood transfusion from her 5-year old brother, who had miraculously survived the same disease and had developed the antibodies needed to combat the illness.

The doctor explained the situation to her little brother, and asked the little boy if he would be willing to give his blood to his sister. I saw him hesitate for only a moment before taking a deep breath and saying, "Yes, I'll do it if it will save her."

As the transfusion progressed, he lay in bed next to his sister and smiled, as we all did, seeing the color returning to her cheeks.  Then his face grew pale and his smile faded.  He looked up at the doctor and asked with a trembling voice, "Will I start to die right away?"

Being young, the little boy had misunderstood the doctor; he thought he was going to have to give his sister all of his blood in order to save her.

[top of page]

Thought Provoking

[top of page]

How We Got Where We Are

The U.S. standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 ft -- 8½ in., which is an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used? Because that's the way they built them in England, and English expatriates built the first U.S. railroads. Why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used. Why did they use that gauge then? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.

Okay, then! Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing?  Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long-distance roads in England, because that's the spacing of the wheel ruts. So who built those old rutted roads?

The first long-distance roads in Europe (and England) were built by Imperial Romans for their legions. And the ruts?  Roman war chariots made the first ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels and wagons. Since the chariots were made for or by Imperial Roman, they all had identical wheel spacing. Why did the chariots have that wheel spacing? It was the width that fit the pair of side-by-side war horses that pulled each chariot.

Thus, the U.S. standard railroad gauge of 4 ft -- 8½ in. is derived from the original specifications for Imperial Roman war chariots, proving that bureaucracies can live on forever. So, the next time you are handed a specification and wonder what horse's rear end came up with it, you may be exactly right.

Addendum:
As an interesting extension to this story, consider the Space Shuttle and it's two booster rockets, called solid rocket boosters or SRBs, that are attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. They are made by Morton-Thiokol at their factory at Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs might have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. However, the railroad line from the factory to the East passed through a mountain tunnel that limited the width. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track is -- you guessed it -- about as wide as two horse's rear ends. So, the major design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was determined by the width of a horse's rear end!

[top of page]

Wisdom of the Ages

I've learned that...

[top of page]

Betcha Didn't Know

[top of page]

WARNING! Contents may make you feel old

Each year, the staff at Beloit College in Wisconsin compiles a faculty guide to the mindset of that year's incoming freshmen. Here is the list for the 1999-2000 school year:

• Most of the people who are starting college this fall across the nation were born in 1982.
• They have no meaningful recollection of the Reagan Era and probably did not know he had ever been shot.
• They were prepubescent when the Persian Gulf War was waged.
• They were 11 when the Soviet Union dissolved and do not remember the Cold War.
• They have never feared a nuclear war.
• They are too young to remember the space shuttle blowing up.
• Bottle caps have always been the screw-off type and plastic.
• Atari predates them, as do vinyl albums; the expression "you sound like a broken record" means nothing to them.
• They have never owned a record player.
• They have likely never played Pac Man and have never heard of Pong.
• They may have never heard of an 8-track. The compact disc was introduced when they were 1 year old.
• As far as they know, stamps have always cost about 33 cents.
• They have always had an answering machine.
• Most have never seen a TV set with only 13 channels, nor have they seen black-and-white TV. They have always had cable.
• They were born the year that Sony introduced the Walkman.
• Jay Leno has always been host of the Tonight Show.
• They have no idea when or why Jordache jeans were cool.
• Popcorn has always been cooked in the microwave.
• They have never seen Larry Bird play.
• They never took a swim and thought about Jaws.
• The Vietnam War is as ancient history to them, let alone World Wars I and II and the Civil War.
• They have no idea that Americans were ever held hostage in Iran.
• They don't know who Mork was or where he was from.
• They never heard: "Where's the beef?", "I'd walk a mile for a Camel", or "de plane, de plane."
• They have no idea who J.R. is and, thus, do not know or care who shot him.
• McDonalds products never came in Styrofoam containers.
• They don't have a clue how to use a typewriter.

[top of page]

Fun with Computers, Supposedly from the Wall Street Journal

And you think you are technologically challenged:

• Compaq is considering changing the command "Press Any Key" to "Press Return Key" because of the flood of calls asking where the "Any"  key is.
• AST technical support had a caller complaining that her mouse was hard to control with the dust cover on. The cover turned out to be the plastic bag the mouse was packaged in.
• Another Compaq technician received a call from a man complaining that the system wouldn't read word processing files from his old diskettes.  The customer had stuck labels on the diskettes, then rolled them into his typewriter to type on the labels.
• Another customer was asked to send a copy of her defective diskettes.  A few days later, a letter arrived from the customer along with photocopies of the floppies.
• A Dell technician advised a customer to put his troubled floppy back in the drive and close the door. The customer asked the tech to hold on, and was heard putting the phone down, getting up and crossing the room to close the door to his room.
• Another Dell customer called to say he couldn't get his computer to fax anything. After 40 minutes of trouble-shooting, the tech discovered the man was trying to fax a piece of paper by holding it in front of the monitor screen and hitting the "send" key.
• Yet another Dell customer called to complain that his keyboard no longer worked. He had cleaned it by filling up his tub with soap and water and soaking the keyboard for a day, then removing all the keys and washing them individually.
• A Dell technician received a call from a customer who was enraged because his computer had told him he was "bad" and "an invalid". The tech explained that the computer's "bad command" and "invalid" responses shouldn't be taken personally.
• A confused caller to IBM was having troubles printing documents. He told the technician that the computer had said it "cannot find printer".  The user had tried turning the computer screen to face the printer, but that his computer still couldn't "see" the printer.
• An exasperated caller to Dell Computer Tech Support couldn't get her new Dell computer to turn on. After ensuring the computer was plugged in, the technician asked her what happened when she pushed the power button. Her response, "I pushed and pushed on the foot pedal and nothing  happened."   The "foot pedal" turned out to be the computer's mouse.
• Another customer called Compaq Tech Support to say her brand-new computer wouldn't work. She said she unpacked the unit, plugged it in and sat there for 20 minutes waiting for something to happen. When asked what happened when she pressed the power switch, she asked "What Power switch?"
• From a Novell NetWare sysop: Caller: "Hello, is this Tech Support?" Tech: "Yes, it is. How may I help you?" Caller: "The cup holder on my PC is broken and I  am within my warranty period. How do I go about getting that fixed?" Tech: "I'm sorry, but did you say a cup holder?" Caller: "Yes, it's attached to the front of my computer." Tech: "Please excuse me if I seem a bit stumped, it's because I am. Did you receive this as part of a promotional, at a trade show?" Caller: "It came with my computer I don't know anything about a promotional.  It just has '4X' on it." At this point the Tech Rep had to mute the caller, because he couldn't stand it.  He was laughing too hard. The caller had been using the load drawer of the CD-ROM drive as a cup holder, and snapped it off the drive!
• Another IBM customer had trouble installing software and rang for support. "I put in the first disk, and that was OK. It said to put in the second disk, and I had some problems with that disk. When it said to put in the third disk - I couldn't even fit it in...." The user hadn't realized that "Insert Disk 2" required removing Disk 1 first.

Don't you feel better now?

[top of page]

Puzzles (with answers below)

In the following puzzles, see if you can figure out what words the capital letters represent. For example "16 = O in a P" stands for "16 Ounces in a Pound ". Good luck! The answers are given to the right.

[top of page]

Interesting Titles in Country Music

• Get Your Tongue Outta My Mouth, 'Cause I'm Kissing You Goodbye.
• Her Teeth Was Stained, But Her heart Was Pure.
• How Can I Miss You If You Won't Go Away?
• I Don't Know Whether To Kill Myself Or Go Bowling.
• I Just Bought A Car From A Guy That Stole My Girl, But The Car Don't Run So I Figure We're Even.
• I Keep Forgettin' I Forgot About You.
• I Liked You Better Before I Knew You So Well.
• I Still Miss You, Baby, But My Aim's Gettin' Better.
• I Wouldn't Take Her To A Dog Fight, Cause I'm Afraid She'd Win.
• I'll Marry You Tomorrow But Let's Honeymoon Tonight.
• I'm So Miserable Without You, It's Like Having You Here.
• I've Got Tears In My Ears From Lyin' On My Back and Cryin' Over You.
• If I Can't Be Number One In Your Life, Then Number Two On You.
• If I Had Shot You When I Wanted To, I'd Be Out By Now.
• Mama Get A Hammer (There's A Fly On Papa's Head).
• My Head Hurts, My Feet Stink And I Don't Love You, Anymore.
• My Wife Ran Off With My Best Friend, And I Sure Do Miss Him.
• Please Bypass This Heart.
• She Got The Ring And I Got The Finger.
• You Done Tore Out My Heart And Stomped That Sucker Flat.
• You're The Reason Our Kids Are So Ugly.
• If the Phone Don't Ring, You'll Know It's Me.
• She's Actin' Single and I'm Drinkin' Doubles.
• She's Looking Better After Every Beer.
• I Haven't Gone To Bed With Any Ugly Women, But I've Sure Woke Up With A Few.

[top of page]

Groucho Marx: In His Own Words

• Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?
• I have nothing but respect for you, and not much of that.
• Time flies like an arrow.  Fruit flies like a banana.
• Room service?  Send up a larger room.
• Those are my principles.  If you don't like them I have others.
• He may look like an idiot and talk like an idiot but don't let that fool you.  He really is an idiot.
• I never forget a face, but in your case I'll be glad to make an exception.
• A child of five could understand this.  Fetch me a child of five.
• From the moment I picked your book up until I laid it down I was convulsed with laughter.  Someday I intend reading it.
• You know I could rent you out as a decoy for duck hunters?
• You've got the brain of a four-year-old boy, and I'll bet he was glad to get rid of it.
• Why should I care about posterity?  What's posterity ever done for me?
• Why, I'd horse-whip you if I had a horse.
• Military justice is to justice what military music is to music.
• Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms.
• One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas.  How he got into my pajamas I'll never know.
• I must say that I find television very educational.  The minute somebody turns it on, I go to the library and read a book.
• I have had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn't it.
• If I held you any closer I would be on the other side of you.
• I must confess, I was born at a very early age.
• I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members.
• I was married by a judge.  I should have asked for a jury.
• (taking someone's pulse) Either he's dead or my watch has stopped.
• Why was I with her? She reminds me of you.  In fact, she reminds me more of you than you do!
• Well, art is art, isn't it? Still, on the other hand, water is water!  And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does.  Now, uh... Now you tell me what you know.
• Marry me and I'll never look at another horse!
• I married your mother because I wanted children.  Imagine my disappointment when you came along.
• Whatever it is I'm against it.
• Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend.  Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.
• Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted.

[top of page]

Otherwise Useless Information

• If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days, you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.  (Hardly seems worth it!)
• The human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out to the body to squirt blood 30 feet.
• A pig's orgasm lasts for 30 minutes.
• Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour.
• Humans and dolphins are the only species that have sex for pleasure. Too bad for pigs.
• On average people fear spiders more than they do death.
• The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue.
• You can't kill yourself by holding your breath.
• Americans on the average eat 18 acres of pizza every day.
• Every time you lick a stamp, you're consuming 1/10 of a calorie.
• You're more likely to be killed by a flying champagne cork than by a poisonous spider.
• Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people do.
• A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.
• Fleas can jump 350 times their body length. It's like a human jumping the length of a football field.
• A cockroach will live nine days without it's head, before it starves to death.
• The male praying mantis cannot copulate while its head is attached The female initiates sex by ripping the males head off.
• Some lions mate over 50 times a day.
• Butterflies taste with their feet.
• Starfishes haven't got brains.

[top of page]

Famous Words of Wisdom from Albert Einstein, Man of the Century

On Knowledge --

• "Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius, and a lot of courage, to move in the opposite direction."
• "Imagination is more important than knowledge."
• "The only real valuable thing is intuition."
• "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."
• "Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen."
• "The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
• "The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education."
• "The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing."

His Understanding of the World --

• "I want to know God's thoughts; the rest are details."
• "The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax."
• "I am convinced that He (God) does not play dice."
• "The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility."
• "Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character."
• "Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind."
• "Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding."
• "The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible."
• "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe."
• "Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods."
• "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
• "In order to form an immaculate member of a flock of sheep one must, above all, be a sheep."
• "Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts."

On People and Life --

• "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."
• "A person starts to live when he can live outside himself."
• "I never think of the future. It comes soon enough."
• "Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing."
• "Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new."
• "Great spirits have often encountered violent opposition from weak minds."
• "Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love."
• "No, this trick won't work...How on earth are you ever going to explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love?"
• "My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind."
• "The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking...the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker."
• "Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence."
• "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed."
• "Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion."
• "You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat."
• "A human being is a part of a whole, called by us 'universe', a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest...a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

On Math and Science and Education --

• "Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it."
• "God does not care about our mathematical difficulties. He integrates empirically."
• "The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking."
• "Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal."
• "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."
• "Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school."
• "Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater."
• "Equations are more important to me, because politics is for the present, but an equation is something for eternity."
• "If A is a success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut."
• "As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality."
• "...one of the strongest motives that lead men to art and science is escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness, from the fetters of one's own ever-shifting desires. A finely tempered nature longs to escape from the personal life into the world of objective perception and thought."
• "Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. THAT'S relativity."

[top of page]

The King

Legend has it that, back in his glory days, Muhammad Ali got on a plane and failed to fasten his seatbelt. When the flight attendant reminded Ali to fasten his belt, the fighter replied, "Superman doesn't need a seat belt." To that, the flight attended smiled and replied, "Superman doesn't need an airplane, either." Ali fastened his belt.

[top of page]

Mars and Venus

While on a car trip, a couple stopped at a roadside restaurant for lunch. After finishing their meal, the woman left her glasses on the table, but didn't miss them until they were back on the highway. By then, they had to travel quite a distance before they could find a place to turn around. The man fussed and complained all the way back to the restaurant. When they finally arrived at the restaurant, as the woman got out of the car to retrieve her glasses, the man yelled to her, "While you're in there, you might as well get my hat, too."

[top of page]

Santa Claus (From An Engineering Perspective)

There are approximately two billion children (persons under 18) in the world. However, since Santa does not visit children of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or Buddhist religions, this reduces the workload for Christmas Night to 15 percent of the total, or 378 million (according to the Population Reference Bureau). At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that comes to 108 million homes, presuming that there is at least one "good" child in each.

Santa has about 31 hours of Christmas with which to work, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the Earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical); thus, 967.7 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with a good child, Santa has around one thousandth of a second to park the sleigh, hop out, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left for him, get back up the chimney, jump into the sleigh and get on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 108 million homes is evenly distributed around the Earth (which, of course, we know to be false, but will accept for the purposes of our calculations), that's 0.78 miles per household; a total trip of 75.5 million miles. This means that Santa’s sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second -- 3,000 times the speed of sound. For the purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle, the Ulysses Space Probe, moves at a meager 27.4 miles per second, and a conventional reindeer can run (at best) 15 miles per hour.

The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized Lego set (two pounds), the sleigh is loaded with more than 500,000 tons, not counting Santa himself. On land, a conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that the "flying" reindeer could pull ten times the normal amount, the job can't be done with eight or even nine of them --Santa would need 360,000 of them. This increases the payload another 54,000 tons, not counting the weight of the sleigh, or roughly seven times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch).

Five hundred fifty four thousand (554,000) tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance. The reindeer would heat up in the same fashion as a spacecraft does when re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer would absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second. In short, they would burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them and creating deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire team of reindeer would be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second, or right about the time Santa reached the fifth house on his trip. Not that it matters, however, since Santa, as a result of accelerating from a dead stop to 650 miles per second in 0.001 seconds, would be subjected to a force equivalent to that at 17,500 g's. A 250-pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force, instantly crushing his bones and organs and reducing him to a quivering blob of pink goo.

Therefore, if Santa did exist, he's dead now. Merry Christmas.

[top of page]

Signs That You're Getting Old

• Your back goes out more than you do.
• You quit trying to hold your stomach in, no matter who walks into the room.
• You buy a compass for the dash of your car/truck.
• You are proud of your lawn mower.
• Your friend is dating someone half his/her age, and isn't breaking any laws.
• Your arms are almost too short to read the newspaper.
• You sing along with the elevator music.
• You enjoy hearing about other people's operations.
• You no longer think of speed limits as a challenge.
• People call at 9:00 p.m. and ask, "Did I wake you?"
• You answer a question with, "Because I said so."
• You send money to PBS.
• The end of your tie doesn't come anywhere near the top of your pants.
• You take a metal detector to the beach.
• You know what the word "equity" means.
• You can't remember the last time you laid on the floor to watch television.
• Your ears are hairier than your head.
• You have a party and the neighbors don't even realize it.

[top of page]

Questions of Irony

• Is there ever a time at the Bureau of Missing Persons when no one is there?
• When will all the rhetorical questions end?
• We have mileage, yardage and footage. What about inchage?
• Why do you chop a tree down and then chop it up?
• Isn't "no comment" actually a comment?
• If you get a job in a duty-free shop, is there anything to do?
• What exactly is midair? Is there some part of the air besides the "mid" part?
• If you were cheated by the Better Business Bureau, to whom would you complain?

[top of page]

Signs That You've Had Too Much Of The '90s

• You try to enter your password on the microwave.
• You haven't played solitaire with real cards in years.
• You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of 3.
• You email your buddy who works at the desk next to you.
• You chat several times a day with a stranger from South America, but you haven't spoken to your next-door neighbor yet this year.
• You buy a computer and a week later it is out of date.
• Your reason for not staying in touch with friends is that they do not have email addresses.
• You consider the U.S. Mail painfully slow and/or call it "snail mail".
• Your idea of being organized is multiple colored post-it notes.
• You hear most of your jokes via email instead of in person.
• When you go home after a long day at work you still answer the phone in a business manner.
• When you make phone calls from home, you accidentally insert a "9" to get an outside line.
• You've sat at the same desk for four years and worked for three different companies.
• Your company's welcome sign is attached with Velcro.
• Your resume is on a diskette in your pocket.
• You really get excited about a 1.7 percent pay raise.
• You learn about your redundancy on the 11 o'clock news.
• Your biggest loss from a system crash was when you lost all of your best jokes.
• Your supervisor doesn't have the ability to do your job.
• Contractors outnumber permanent staff and are more likely to get awards for longevity of service.
• Board members salaries are higher than all the Third World countries annual budgets combined.
• It's dark when you drive to and from work, even in the summer.
• You know exactly how many days you've got left until you retire.
• Interviewees, despite not having the relevant knowledge or experience, terminate the interview when told of the starting salary.
• You see a good looking, smart person and you know it must be a visitor.
• Free food left over from meetings is your staple diet.
• Your supervisor gets a brand-new state-of-the-art laptop with all the latest features, while you have time to go for lunch while yours boots up.
• Being sick is defined as you can't walk or you're in the hospital.
• You're already late on the assignment you just got.
• There's no money in the budget for the five permanent staff your department is short of, but they can afford four full-time management consultants advising your boss's boss on strategy.
• Vacation time is something you roll over to next year.
• Every week another brown collection envelope comes around because someone you didn't even know worked there is leaving.
• Your relatives and family describe your job as "works with computers".
• The only reason you recognize your kids is because their pictures are on your desk.
• You read this entire list, and kept nodding and smiling.

[top of page]

Actual Notations Made by Doctors on Patient Charts

• Patient has chest pain if she lies on her left side for over a year.
• On the 2nd day the knee was better and on the 3rd day it disappeared completely.
• She has had no rigors or shaking chills, but her husband states she was very hot in bed last night.
• The patient has been depressed ever since she began seeing me in 1993.
• The patient is tearful and crying constantly. She also appears to be depressed.
• Discharge status: Alive but without permission.
• Healthy appearing decrepit 69 year-old male.
• Mentally alert but forgetful.
• The patient refused an autopsy.
• The patient has no past history of suicides.
• Patient has left his white blood cells at another hospital.
• Patient's past medical history has been remarkably insignificant with only a 40 pound weight gain in the past three days.
• Patient had waffles for breakfast and anorexia for lunch.
• Between you and me, we ought to be able to get this lady pregnant.
• Since she can't get pregnant with her husband, I thought you might like to work her up.
• She is numb from her toes down.
• While in the ER, she was examined, X-rated and sent home.
• The skin was moist and dry.
• Occasional, constant, infrequent headaches.
• Patient was alert and unresponsive.
• Rectal exam revealed a normal size thyroid.
• She stated that she had been constipated for most of her life, until she got a divorce.
• I saw your patient today, who is still under our car for physical therapy.
• Both breasts are equal and reactive to light and accommodation.
• Exam of genitalia reveals that he is circus sized.
• The lab test indicated abnormal lover function.
• The patient was to have a bowel re-section. However, he took a job as a lawyer instead.
• Skin: Somewhat pale but present.
• The pelvic examination will be done later on the floor.
• Patient was seen in consultation by Dr. Blank, who felt we should sit on the abdomen and I agree.
• Large brown stool ambulating in the hall.
• Patient has two teenage children, but no other abnormalities.

[top of page]

Quotable Quotes

• The freedom of the press is limited to those who have one. -- A.J. Liebling
• Always forgive your enemies. Nothing annoys them so much. -- Oscar Wilde
• History repeats itself, which is one of the things wrong with history. -- Clarence Darrow
• Idealism is fine, but as it approaches reality the cost becomes prohibitive. -- William F. Buckley, Jr.
• The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who don't have it. -- George Bernard Shaw
• Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow. -- Mark Twain
• Critics are like eunuchs in a harem. They know how it's done, they've seen it done every day, but they are unable to do it themselves. -- Brendan Behan
• We are born as princes. Civilization makes us frogs. -- Eric Berne
• A doctor's reputation is made by the number of eminent people who die under his care. -- George Bernard Shaw
• Fishing is a delusion entirely surrounded by liars in old clothes. -- Don Marquis
• Lead me not into temptation; I can find the way myself. -- Rita Mae Brown
• TV is chewing gum for the eyes. -- Frank Lloyd Wright
• Success and failure are equally disastrous. -- Tennessee Williams
• The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don't want, drink what you don't like and do what you'd rather not do. -- Mark Twain
• We learn from experience that man never learns anything from experience. -- George Bernard Shaw

• Anyone can do any amount of work, provided it is not the work they're supposed to be doing at the time. -- Robert Benchley

[top of page]

Inspirational Office Messages

• If you can stay calm while all around you is in chaos, you probably don't completely understand the seriousness of the situation.
• Doing a job the right way the first time will get the job done. Doing it the wrong way over and over will give you job security.
• Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.
• A person who smiles in the face of adversity probably already has a scapegoat in mind.
• Plagiarism saves time and effort.
• If at first you don't succeed, try management.
• Never put off until tomorrow what you can avoid altogether.
• Teamwork means never having to take all the blame yourself.
• The floggings will continue until morale is improved.
• Never underestimate the power of very stupid people in large groups.
• A snooze button is a poor substitute for no alarm clock at all.
• Indecision is the key to flexibility.
• Aim low: reach your goals and avoid disappointment.
• The Romans did not create a great empire by calling meetings, but rather by killing off all who opposed them.

[top of page]

Just when you thought you weren't getting enough credit-card solicitations....

A bank issued a gold MasterCard with a $5,000 credit limit to an eleven-year-old boy, who disclosed both his correct date of birth and his total income -- a $5 per week allowance -- on his application. A spokesperson for the issuing bank said that a mistake was made.

[top of page]

Sad, But Probably Accurate

During the French revolution, a thief, a priest and an engineer were brought before the people's court and sentenced to death by guillotine for their supposed crimes. On execution day, the courtyard in the middle of the town was filled with people surrounding the guillotine, which sat high upon a platform. The three were brought to the base of the platform and the priest was chosen to go first.

As they prepared him, the priest asked for one last favor. "I would like to be placed upon the guillotine facing up," he said, "for I am innocent of these charges and I wish to look upwards to heaven to see my Maker as I die. For he will surely welcome me into Heaven."

Seeing nothing wrong with this, the executioner granted his request. A hush fell over the crowd as the lever was pulled, but the blade stayed fixed and did not drop! Stunned for a moment, the crowd chanted "let him go, let him go," believing he must be innocent. And so they let the priest go.

Next it was the thief's turn. Thinking to himself, "what can it hurt?", he also requested to be placed facing up so that he too could see God, who will know he is also innocent of the charges. The thief was placed face up in the guillotine. Once again, nothing happened when the lever was pulled. And once again, the crowd shouted for release and the thief was let go.

The engineer had been watching all of this with a very puzzled look upon his face. As he was walked up the stairs to take his turn, he looked up again at the guillotine. Suddenly his eyes lit up as he shouted, "Hey! Wait a minute, I see what the problem is!"

[top of page]

Construction Definitions

• Auditors -- People who go in after the war is lost to bayonet the wounded.
• Bid -- A wild guess that is carried out to two decimal places.
• Bid Opening -- A poker game in which the losing hand wins.
• Completion Date -- The point at which liquidated damages begin.
• Contractor -- A gambler who never gets to shuffle, cut or deal.
• Critical Path Method -- A management technique for losing your shirt while remaining perfectly in control.
• Delayed Payment -- A tourniquet that is applied at the pockets.
• Engineer's Estimate -- The cost of construction in Heaven.
• Lawyers -- People who go in after the auditors and strip the bodies.
• Liquidated Damages -- A penalty for failing to achieve the impossible.
• Low Bidder -- A contractor who is wondering what he or she left out.
• OSHA -- A protective coating that is made by half-baking a mixture of fine print, split hairs, red tape and baloney, and that is usually applied at random with a shotgun.
• Project Manager -- The conductor of an orchestra in which every musician has a different union.
• Strike -- An effort to increase egg production by strangling the chicken.

[top of page]

"Washington, we all know, is the land of the experts -- those who, with great confidence, tell us what is going to happen. Those proven right will remind us of it and perhaps try to sell us a newsletter, while those proven wrong remain silent and hope we'll all forget. Mostly, perhaps, we do forget. But now the authors of a new book called The Experts Speak have gone back through the records and with vicious pleasure have recorded some experts' predictions from the past. ... Lord Kelvin, the great British physicist in the nineteenth century: "Radio has no future." A New York Times correspondent in Moscow in 1920: "The Bolshevik government will not last six months." ... The head of the U.S. Patent Office, in 1899: "Everything that can be invented has been invented." ... And my favorite, John B. Sedgwick, a Union Army general in the Civil War, seeing the Confederate Army opening fire on his troops at the Battle of Spotsylvania, said he was not worried because "they could not hit an elephant at this dist..." -- from Everyone is Entitled to My Opinion, by David Brinkley.

[top of page]