diff --git a/data/etc/fortunes/Art b/data/etc/fortunes/Art new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..6abb2bf335 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/etc/fortunes/Art @@ -0,0 +1,1675 @@ +7:30, Channel 5: The Bionic Dog (Action/Adventure) + The Bionic Dog drinks too much and kicks over the National Redwood Forest. + +7:30, Channel 8: The Bionic Dog (Action/Adventure) + The Bionic Dog gets a hormonal short-circuit and violates the Mann Act with an interstate Greyhound bus. +% +A "critic" is a man who creates nothing and thereby feels qualified to judge the work of creative men. There is logic in this; he is unbiased -- he hates all creative people equally. +% +A celebrity is a person who is known for his well-knownness. +% + A circus foreman was making the rounds inspecting the big top when a scrawny little man entered the tent and walked up to him. "Are you the foreman around here?" he asked timidly. "I'd like to join your circus; I have what I think is a pretty good act." + The foreman nodded assent, whereupon the little man hurried over to the main pole and rapidly climbed up to the very tip-top of the big top. Drawing a deep breath, he hurled himself off into the air and began flapping his arms furiously. Amazingly, rather than plummeting to his death the little man began to fly all around the poles, lines, trapezes and other obstacles, +performing astounding feats of aerobatics which ended in a long power dive from the top of the tent, pulling up into a gentle feet-first landing beside the foreman, who had been nonchalantly watching the whole time. + "Well," puffed the little man. "What do you think?" + "That's all you do?" answered the foreman scornfully. "Bird imitations?" +% +A critic is a bundle of biases held loosely together by a sense of taste. + -- Whitney Balliett +% +A diva who specializes in risque arias is an off-coloratura soprano. +% +A drama critic is a person who surprises a playwright by informing him what he meant. + -- Wilson Mizner +% +A fool-proof method for sculpting an elephant: first, get a huge block of marble; then you chip away everything that doesn't look like an elephant. +% + A hard-luck actor who appeared in one coloossal disaster after another finally got a break, a broken leg to be exact. Someone pointed out that it's the first time the poor fellow's been in the same cast for more than a week. +% +A Hollywood producer calls a friend, another producer on the phone. + "Hello?" his friend answers. + "Hi!" says the man. "This is Bob, how are you doing?" + "Oh," says the friend, "I'm doing great! I just sold a screenplay for two hundred thousand dollars. I've started a novel adaptation and the studio advanced me fifty thousand dollars on it. I also have a television series coming on next week, and everyone says it's going to be a big hit! I'm doing *great*! How are you?" + "Okay," says the producer, "give me a call when he leaves." +% +A man paints with his brains and not with his hands. +% + A musical reviewer admitted he always praised the first show of a new theatrical season. "Who am I to stone the first cast?" +% + A musician of more ambition than talent composed an elegy at the death of composer Edward MacDowell. She played the elegy for the pianist Josef Hoffman, then asked his opinion. "Well, it's quite nice," he replied, but don't you think it would be better if..." + "If what?" asked the composer. + "If ... if you had died and MacDowell had written the elegy?" +% +A poet who reads his verse in public may have other nasty habits. +% +A rose is a rose is a rose. Just ask Jean Marsh, known to millions of PBS viewers in the '70s as Rose, the maid on the BBC export "Upstairs, Downstairs." Though Marsh has since gone on to other projects, ... it's with Rose she's forever identified. So much so that she even likes to joke about having one named after her, a distinction not without its drawbacks. "I was very flattered when I heard about it, but when I looked up the official description, it said, `Jean Marsh: pale peach, not very good in beds; better up against a wall.' I want to tell you that's not true. I'm very good in beds as well." +% +A sequel is an admission that you've been reduced to imitating yourself. + -- Don Marquis +% + A shy teenage boy finally worked up the nerve to give a gift to Madonna, a young puppy. It hitched its waggin' to a star. +% +A team effort is a lot of people doing what I say. + -- Michael Winner, British film director +% +A true artist will let his wife starve, his children go barefoot, his mother drudge for his living at seventy, sooner than work at anything but his art. + -- Shaw +% +A writer is congenitally unable to tell the truth and that is why we call what he writes fiction. + -- William Faulkner +% +A yawn is a silent shout. + -- G.K. Chesterton +% +A young man wrote to Mozart and said: + +Q: "Herr Mozart, I am thinking of writing symphonies. Can you give me any suggestions as to how to get started?" +A: "A symphony is a very complex musical form, perhaps you should begin with some simple lieder and work your way up to a symphony." +Q: "But Herr Mozart, you were writing symphonies when you were 8 years old." +A: "But I never asked anybody how." +% +Acting is an art which consists of keeping the audience from coughing. +% +Actor Real Name + +Boris Karloff William Henry Pratt +Cary Grant Archibald Leach +Edward G. Robinson Emmanual Goldenburg +Gene Wilder Gerald Silberman +John Wayne Marion Morrison +Kirk Douglas Issur Danielovitch +Richard Burton Richard Jenkins Jr. +Roy Rogers Leonard Slye +Woody Allen Allen Stewart Konigsberg +% +Actors will happen even in the best-regulated families. +% +Actresses will happen in the best regulated families. + -- Addison Mizner and Oliver Herford, "The Entirely + New Cynic's Calendar", 1905 +% +Adding sound to movies would be like putting lipstick on the Venus de Milo. + -- actress Mary Pickford, 1925 +% +Adhere to your own act, and congratulate yourself if you have done something strange and extravagant, and broken the monotony of a decorous age. + -- Ralph Waldo Emerson +% +After a few boring years, socially meaningful rock 'n' roll died out. It was replaced by disco, which offers no guidance to any form of life more advanced than the lichen family. + -- Dave Barry, "Kids Today: They Don't Know Dum Diddly Do" +% +Alex Haley was adopted! +% +All art is but imitation of nature. + -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca +% +An actor's a guy who if you ain't talkin' about him, ain't listening. + -- Marlon Brando +% +An artist should be fit for the best society and keep out of it. +% +Another possible source of guidance for teenagers is television, but television's message has always been that the need for truth, wisdom and world peace pales by comparison with the need for a toothpaste that offers whiter teeth *and* fresher breath. + -- Dave Barry, "Kids Today: They Don't Know Dum Diddly Do" +% +Any dramatic series the producers want us to take seriously as a representation of contemporary reality cannot be taken seriously as a representation of anything -- except a show to be ignored by anyone capable of sitting upright in a chair and chewing gum simultaneously. + -- Richard Schickel +% +Any fool can paint a picture, but it takes a wise person to be able to sell it. +% + "Are you police officers?" + "No, ma'am. We're musicians." + -- The Blues Brothers +% +Around the turn of this century, a composer named Camille Saint-Saens wrote a satirical zoological-fantasy called "Le Carnaval des Animaux." Aside from one movement of this piece, "The Swan", Saint-Saens didn't allow this work to be published or even performed until a year had elapsed after his death. (He died in 1921.) + Most of us know the "Swan" movement rather well, with its smooth, flowing cello melody against a calm background; but I've been having this fantasy... + What if he had written this piece with lyrics, as a song to be sung? And, further, what if he had accompanied this song with a musical saw? (This instrument really does exist, often played by percussionists!) Then the piece would be better known as: + SAINT-SAENS' SAW SONG "SWAN"! +% +Art is a jealous mistress. + -- Ralph Waldo Emerson +% +Art is a lie which makes us realize the truth. + -- Picasso +% +Art is anything you can get away with. + -- Marshall McLuhan. +% +Art is either plagiarism or revolution. + -- Paul Gauguin +% +Art is Nature speeded up and God slowed down. + -- Chazal +% +Art is the tree of life. Science is the tree of death. +% +As a goatherd learns his trade by goat, so a writer learns his trade by wrote. +% +Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamp-post how it feels about dogs. + -- Christopher Hampton +% +Authors (and perhaps columnists) eventually rise to the top of whatever depths they were once able to plumb. + -- Stanley Kaufman +% +Authors are easy to get on with -- if you're fond of children. + -- Michael Joseph, "Observer" +% +Bahdges? We don't need no stinkin' bahdges! + -- "The Treasure of Sierra Madre" +% +Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work. + -- Flaubert +% +Being a mime means never having to say you're sorry. +% +"Being disintegrated makes me ve-ry an-gry!" +% +Ben, why didn't you tell me? + -- Luke Skywalker +% +"Benson, you are so free of the ravages of intelligence" + -- Time Bandits +% +Best Mistakes In Films + In his "Filmgoer's Companion", Mr. Leslie Halliwell helpfully lists four of the cinema's greatest moments which you should get to see if at all possible. + In "Carmen Jones", the camera tracks with Dorothy Dandridge down a street; and the entire film crew is reflected in the shop window. + In "The Wrong Box", the roofs of Victorian London are emblazoned with television aerials. + In "Decameron Nights", Louis Jourdain stands on the deck of his fourteenth century pirate ship; and a white lorry trundles down the hill in the background. + In "Viking Queen", set in the times of Boadicea, a wrist watch is clearly visible on one of the leading characters. + -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" +% +BS: You remind me of a man. +B: What man? +BS: The man with the power. +B: What power? +BS: The power of voodoo. +B: Voodoo? +BS: You do. +B: Do what? +BS: Remind me of a man. +B: What man? +BS: The man with the power... + -- Cary Grant, "The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer" +% +Burnt Sienna. That's the best thing that ever happened to Crayolas. + -- Ken Weaver +% +But if you wish at once to do nothing and to be respectable nowdays, the best pretext is to be at work on some profound study. + -- Leslie Stephen, "Sketches from Cambridge" +% +But you shall not escape my iambics. + -- Gaius Valerius Catullus +% +Can't act. Slightly bald. Also dances. + -- RKO executive, reacting to Fred Astaire's screen test. + Cerf/Navasky, "The Experts Speak" +% +Classical music is the kind we keep thinking will turn into a tune. + -- Kin Hubbard, "Abe Martin's Sayings" +% +Darth Vader sleeps with a Teddywookie. +% +Darth Vader! Only you would be so bold! + -- Princess Leia Organa +% +Did you know that the voice tapes easily identify the Russian pilot that shot down the Korean jet? At one point he definitely states: + + "Natasha! First we shoot jet, then we go after moose and squirrel." + + -- ihuxw!tommyo +% +Disco is to music what Etch-A-Sketch is to art. +% +Don't everyone thank me at once! + -- Han Solo +% +Dustin Farnum: Why, yesterday, I had the audience glued to their seats! +Oliver Herford: Wonderful! Wonderful! Clever of you to think of it! + -- Brian Herbert, "Classic Comebacks" +% +Dying is easy. Comedy is difficult. + -- Actor Edmond Gween, on his deathbed. +% +E.T. GO HOME!!! (And take your Smurfs with you.) +% +Ed Sullivan will be around as long as someone else has talent. + -- Fred Allen +% +Eeny, Meeny, Jelly Beanie, the spirits are about to speak! + -- Bullwinkle Moose +% +Elwood: What kind of music do you get here ma'am? +Barmaid: Why, we get both kinds of music, Country and Western. +% +Ever get the feeling that the world's on tape and one of the reels is missing? + -- Rich Little +% +Everyone is in the best seat. + -- John Cage +% +Fame lost its appeal for me when I went into a public restroom and an autograph seeker handed me a pen and paper under the stall door. + -- Marlo Thomas +% +Fast ship? You mean you've never heard of the Millennium Falcon? + -- Han Solo +% +"First things first -- but not necessarily in that order" + -- The Doctor, "Doctor Who" +% +Fools rush in -- and get the best seats in the house. +% +For myself, I can only say that I am astonished and somewhat terrified at the results of this evening's experiments. Astonished at the wonderful power you have developed, and terrified at the thought that so much hideous and bad music may be put on record forever. + -- Sir Arthur Sullivan, message to Edison, 1888 +% +For the next hour, WE will control all that you see and hear. +% +Forms follow function, and often obliterate it. +% +FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE OBSCURE FILMS: #12 + +O.E.D.: David Lean, 1969, 3 hours 30 min. + + Lean's version of the Oxford Dictionary has been accused of + shallowness in its treatment of a complete work. Omar Sharif + tends to overact as aardvark, but Alec Guiness is solid in + the role of abbacy. As usual, the photography is stunning. + With Julie Christie. +% +FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE OBSCURE FILMS: #3 + +MIRACLE ON 42ND STREET: + Santa Claus, in the off season, follows his heart's desire and tries to make it big on Broadway. Santa sings and dances his way into your heart. +% +FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE OBSCURE FILMS: #5 + +THE ATOMIC GRANDMOTHER: + This humorous but heart-warming story tells of an elderly woman forced to work at a nuclear power plant in order to help the family make ends meet. At night, granny sits on the porch, tells tales of her colorful past, and the family uses her to cook barbecues and to power small electrical appliances. Maureen Stapleton gives a glowing performance. +% +FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE OBSCURE FILMS: #9 + +THE PARKING PROBLEM IN PARIS: Jean-Luc Godard, 1971, 7 hours 18 min. + + Godard's meditation on the topic has been described as everything from "timeless" to "endless." (Remade by Gene Wilder as NO PLACE TO PARK.) +% +FORTUNE'S FUN FACTS TO KNOW AND TELL: #37 + Can you name the seven seas? + Antartic, Artic, North Atlantic, South Atlantic, Indian, + North Pacific, South Pacific. + + Can you name the seven dwarfs from Snow White? + Doc, Dopey, Sneezy, Happy, Grumpy, Sleepy and Bashful. +% +Fremen add life to spice! +% + FROM THE DESK OF + Dorothy Gale + + Auntie Em: + Hate you. + Hate Kansas. + Taking the dog. + Dorothy +% +G. B. Shaw to William Douglas Home: "Go on writing plays, my boy. One of these days a London producer will go into his office and say to his secretary, `Is there a play from Shaw this morning?' and when she says `No,' he will say, `Well, then we'll have to start on the rubbish.' And that's your chance, my boy." +% +Gauls! We have nothing to fear; except perhaps that the sky may fall on our heads tomorrow. But as we all know, tomorrow never comes!! + -- Adventures of Asterix +% +George Bernard Shaw once sent two tickets to the opening night of one of his plays to Winston Churchill with the following note: + "Bring a friend, if you have one." + +Churchill wrote back, returning the two tickets and excused himself as he had a previous engagement. He also attached the following: + "Please send me two tickets for the next night, if there is one." +% +Go ahead... make my day. + -- Dirty Harry +% +God help the troubadour who tries to be a star. The more that you try to find success, the more that you will fail. + -- Phil Ochs, on the Second System Effect +% +God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant and the cat. He has no real style, He just goes on trying other things. + -- Pablo Picasso +% +God save us from a bad neighbor and a beginner on the fiddle. +% +Good night, Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are. +% +Governor Tarkin. I should have expected to find you holding Vader's leash. I thought I recognized your foul stench when I was brought on board. + -- Princess Leia Organa +% +GREAT MOMENTS IN AMERICAN HISTORY (#17): + +On November 13, Felix Unger was asked to remove himself from his place of residence. +% +Grig (the navigator): ... so you see, it's just the two of us against the entire space armada. +Alex (the gunner): What?!? +Grig: I've always wanted to fight a desperate battle against overwhelming odds. +Alex: It'll be a slaughter! +Grig: That's the spirit! + -- The Last Starfighter +% +H. L. Mencken suffers from the hallucination that he is H. L. Mencken -- there is no cure for a disease of that magnitude. + -- Maxwell Bodenheim +% +"Hawk, we're going to die." +"Never say die... and certainly never say we." + -- M*A*S*H +% +He played the king as if afraid someone else would play the ace. + -- John Mason Brown, drama critic +% +He was a fiddler, and consequently a rogue. + -- Jonathon Swift +% +"Hello," he lied. + -- Don Carpenter, quoting a Hollywood agent +% +Hello. Jim Rockford's machine, this is Larry Doheny's machine. Will you please have your master call my master at his convenience? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. + -- "The Rockford Files" +% +Hi Jimbo. Dennis. Really appreciate the help on the income tax. You wanna help on the audit now? + -- "The Rockford Files" +% +Hoaars-Faisse Gallery presents: +An exhibit of works by the artist known only as Pretzel. + +The exhibit includes several large conceptual works using non-traditional media and found objects including old sofa-beds, used mace canisters, discarded sanitary napkins and parts of freeways. The artist explores our dehumanization due to high technology and unresponsive governmental structures in a post-industrial world. She/he (the artist prefers to remain without gender) strives to create dialogue between viewer and creator, to aid us in our quest to experience contemporary life with its inner-city tensions, homelessness, global warming and gender and class-based stress. The works are arranged to lead us to the essence of the argument: that the alienation of the person/machine boundary has sapped the strength of our voices and must be destroyed for society to +exist in a more fundamental sense. +% +Hollywood is where if you don't have happiness you send out for it. + -- Rex Reed +% +Holy Dilemma! Is this the end for the Caped Crusader and the Boy Wonder? Will the Joker and the Riddler have the last laugh? + + Tune in again tomorrow: + same Bat-time, same Bat-channel! +% +How wonderful opera would be if there were no singers. +% +Hummingbirds never remember the words to songs. +% +Humpty Dumpty was pushed. +% +I accept chaos. I am not sure whether it accepts me. I know some people are terrified of the bomb. But then some people are terrified to be seen carrying a modern screen magazine. Experience teaches us that silence terrifies people the most. + -- Bob Dylan +% +I always had a repulsive need to be something more than human. + -- David Bowie +% +I am a deeply superficial person. + -- Andy Warhol +% +I believe that the moment is near when by a procedure of active paranoiac thought, it will be possible to systematize confusion and contribute to the total discrediting of the world of reality. + -- Salvador Dali +% +I can't understand why a person will take a year or two to write a novel when he can easily buy one for a few dollars. + -- Fred Allen +% +I didn't do it! Nobody saw me do it! Can't prove anything! + -- Bart Simpson +% +I didn't like the play, but I saw it under adverse conditions. The curtain was up. +% +I distrust a close-mouthed man. He generally picks the wrong time to talk and says the wrong things. Talking's something you can't do judiciously, unless you keep in practice. Now, sir, we'll talk if you like. I'll tell you right out, I'm a man who likes talking to a man who likes to talk. + -- Sidney Greenstreet, "The Maltese Falcon" +% +I don't know anything about music. In my line you don't have to. + -- Elvis Presley +% +I dread success. To have succeeded is to have finished one's business on earth, like the male spider, who is killed by the female the moment he has succeeded in his courtship. I like a state of continual becoming, with a goal in front and not behind. + -- George Bernard Shaw +% +I had another dream the other day about music critics. They were small and rodent-like with padlocked ears, as if they had stepped out of a painting by Goya. + -- Stravinsky +% +I have a very strange feeling about this... + -- Luke Skywalker +% +"I have come up with a sure-fire concept for a hit television show, which would be called `A Live Celebrity Gets Eaten by a Shark'." + -- Dave Barry, "The Wonders of Sharks on TV" +% +I have had my television aerials removed. It's the moral equivalent of a prostate operation. + -- Malcolm Muggeridge +% +I have more humility in my little finger than you have in your whole BODY! + -- from "Cerebus" #82 +% +I never failed to convince an audience that the best thing they could do was to go away. +% +I never made a mistake in my life. I thought I did once, but I was wrong. + -- Lucy Van Pelt +% +I often quote myself; it adds spice to my conversation. + -- G. B. Shaw +% +I played lead guitar in a band called The Federal Duck, which is the kind of name that was popular in the '60s as a result of controlled substances being in widespread use. Back then, there were no restrictions, in terms of talent, on who could make an album, so we made one, and it sounds like a group of people who have been given powerful but unfamiliar instruments as a therapy for a degenerative nerve disease. + -- Dave Barry, "The Snake" +% +I recognize terror as the finest emotion and so I will try to terrorize the reader. But if I find that I cannot terrify, I will try to horrify, and if I find that I cannot horrify, I'll go for the gross-out. + -- Stephen King +% +I remember once being on a station platform in Cleveland at four in the morning. A black porter was carrying my bags, and as we were waiting for the train to come in, he said to me: "Excuse me, Mr. Cooke, I don't want to invade your privacy, but I have a bet with a friend of mine. Who composed the opening theme music of 'Omnibus'? My friend said Virgil Thomson." I asked him, "What do you say?" He replied, "I say Aaron Copeland." I said, "You're right." The porter said, "I knew Thomson doesn't write counterpoint that way." I told that to a network president, and he was deeply unimpressed. + -- Alistair Cooke +% +I remember Ulysses well... Left one day for the post office to mail a letter, met a blonde named Circe on the streetcar, and didn't come back for 20 years. +% +I saw Lassie. It took me four shows to figure out why the hairy kid never spoke. I mean, he could roll over and all that, but did that deserve a series? +% +I stick my neck out for nobody. + -- Humphrey Bogart, "Casablanca" +% +I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me to see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph. + -- Shirley Temple +% +I suggest a new strategy, Artoo: let the Wookie win. + -- C3P0 +% + "I suppose you expect me to talk." + "No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die." + -- Goldfinger +% +I think we're in trouble. + -- Han Solo +% +I think... I think it's in my basement... Let me go upstairs and check. + -- Escher +% +I truly wish I could be a great surgeon or philosopher or author or anything constructive, but in all honesty I'd rather turn up my amplifier full blast and drown myself in the noise. + -- Charles Schmid, the "Tucson Murderer" +% +I used to be disgusted, now I find I'm just amused. + -- Elvis Costello +% +I was working on a case. It had to be a case, because I couldn't afford a desk. Then I saw her. This tall blond lady. She must have been tall because I was on the third floor. She rolled her deep blue eyes towards me. I picked them up and rolled them back. We kissed. She screamed. I took the cigarette from my mouth and kissed her again. +% +I watch television because you don't know what it will do if you leave it in the room alone. +% +I went into the business for the money, and the art grew out of it. If people are disillusioned by that remark, I can't help it. It's the truth. + -- Charlie Chaplin +% +I went to a Grateful Dead Concert and they played for SEVEN hours. Great song. + -- Fred Reuss +% +I WISH I HAD A KRYPTONITE CROSS, because then you could keep both Dracula and Superman away. + -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +I wish there was a knob on the TV to turn up the intelligence. There's a knob called "brightness", but it doesn't seem to work. + -- Gallagher +% +I'd just as soon kiss a Wookie. + -- Princess Leia Organa +% +I'll be Grateful when they're Dead. +% +I'll never get off this planet. + -- Luke Skywalker +% +I'm a Hollywood writer; so I put on a sports jacket and take off my brain. +% +I'm not a real movie star -- I've still got the same wife I started out with twenty-eight years ago. + -- Will Rogers +% +I've got a very bad feeling about this. + -- Han Solo +% + I. Any body suspended in space will remain in space until made aware of its situation. + Daffy Duck steps off a cliff, expecting further pastureland. He + loiters in midair, soliloquizing flippantly, until he chances to + look down. At this point, the familiar principle of 32 feet per + second per second takes over. + II. Any body in motion will tend to remain in motion until solid matter intervenes suddenly. + Whether shot from a cannon or in hot pursuit on foot, cartoon + characters are so absolute in their momentum that only a telephone + pole or an outsize boulder retards their forward motion absolutely. + Sir Isaac Newton called this sudden termination of motion the + stooge's surcease. +III. Any body passing through solid matter will leave a perforation conforming to its perimeter. + Also called the silhouette of passage, this phenomenon is the + speciality of victims of directed-pressure explosions and of reckless + cowards who are so eager to escape that they exit directly through + the wall of a house, leaving a cookie-cutout-perfect hole. The + threat of skunks or matrimony often catalyzes this reaction. + -- Esquire, "O'Donnell's Laws of Cartoon Motion", June 1980 +% +If *I* had a hammer, there'd be no more folk singers. +% +If all the world's a stage, I want to operate the trap door. + -- Paul Beatty +% +If an average person on the subway turns to you, like an ancient mariner, and starts telling you her tale, you turn away or nod and hope she stops, not just because you fear she might be crazy. If she tells her tale on camera, you might listen. Watching strangers on television , even responding to them from a studio audience, we're disengaged -- voyeurs collaborating with exhibitionists in rituals of sham community. Never have so many known so much about people for whom they cared so little. + -- Wendy Kaminer commenting on testimonial television in "I'm Dysfunctional, You're Dysfunctional". +% +If Beethoven's Seventh Symphony is not by some means abridged, it will soon fall into disuse. + -- Philip Hale, Boston music critic, 1837 +% +If dolphins are so smart, why did Flipper work for television? +% +If God didn't mean for us to juggle, tennis balls wouldn't come three to a can. +% +If God had intended Man to Watch TV, He would have given him Rabbit Ears. +% +If I had any humility I would be perfect. + -- Ted Turner +% +If I had done everything I'm credited with, I'd be speaking to you from a laboratory jar at Harvard. + -- Frank Sinatra + +AS USUAL, YOUR INFORMATION STINKS. + -- Frank Sinatra, telegram to "Time" magazine +% +If I have to lay an egg for my country, I'll do it. + -- Bob Hope +% +If it ain't baroque, don't phiques it. +% +If it were thought that anything I wrote was influenced by Robert Frost, I would take that particular work of mine, shred it, and flush it down the toilet, hoping not to clog the pipes. A more sententious, holding- forth old bore who expected every hero-worshiping adenoidal little twerp of a student-poet to hang on to his every word I never saw. + -- James Dickey +% +If life is a stage, I want some better lighting. +% +If you are of the opinion that the contemplation of suicide is sufficient evidence of a poetic nature, do not forget that actions speak louder than words. + -- Fran Lebowitz, "Metropolitan Life" +% +If you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know. + -- Louis Armstrong +% +If you lose a son you can always get another, but there's only one +Maltese Falcon. + -- Sidney Greenstreet, "The Maltese Falcon" +% +If you think the pen is mightier than the sword, the next time someone pulls out a sword I'd like to see you get up there with your Bic. +% +If you want to get rich from writing, write the sort of thing that's read by persons who move their lips when the're reading to themselves. + -- Don Marquis +% +Imitation is the sincerest form of television. + -- Fred Allen +% +Immature artists imitate, mature artists steal. + -- Lionel Trilling +% +Immature poets imitate, mature poets steal. + -- T.S. Eliot, "Philip Massinger" +% +In Hollywood, all marriages are happy. It's trying to live together afterwards that causes the problems. + -- Shelley Winters +% +In Hollywood, if you don't have happiness, you send out for it. + -- Rex Reed +% +In just seven days, I can make you a man! + -- The Rocky Horror Picture Show +% +In my experience, if you have to keep the lavatory door shut by extending your left leg, it's modern architecture. + -- Nancy Banks Smith +% +In Oz, never say "krizzle kroo" to a Woozy. +% +In the force if Yoda's so strong, construct a sentence with words in the proper order then why can't he? +% +In the Old West a wagon train is crossing the plains. As night falls the wagon train forms a circle, and a campfire is lit in the middle. After everyone has gone to sleep two lone cavalry officers stand watch over the camp. + After several hours of quiet, they hear war drums starting from a nearby Indian village they had passed during the day. The drums get louder and louder. + Finally one soldier turns to the other and says, "I don't like the sound of those drums." + Suddenly, they hear a cry come from the Indian camp: "IT'S NOT OUR REGULAR DRUMMER." +% +It happened that a fire broke out backstage in a theater. The clown came out to inform the public. They thought it was just a jest and applauded. He repeated his warning, they shouted even louder. So I think the world will come to an end amid general applause from all the wits, who believe that it is a joke. +% +It is a sobering thought that when Mozart was my age, he had been dead for two years. + -- Tom Lehrer +% +It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both incisive and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper. + -- Rod Serling +% +It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour. + -- Henry David Thoreau, "Where I Live" +% +It is up to us to produce better-quality movies. + -- Lloyd Kaufman, producer of "Stuff Stephanie in the Incinerator" +% +It just doesn't seem right to go over the river and through the woods to Grandmother's condo. +% +It looks like it's up to me to save our skins. Get into that garbage chute, flyboy! + -- Princess Leia Organa +% +It proves what they say, give the public what they want to see and they'll come out for it. + -- Red Skelton, surveying the funeral of Hollywood mogul Harry Cohn +% +It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't give it up because by that time I was too famous. + -- Robert Benchley +% +It was a book to kill time for those who liked it better dead. +% +It'll be just like Beggars' Canyon back home. + -- Luke Skywalker +% +It's all right letting yourself go as long as you can let yourself back. + -- Mick Jagger +% +It's clever, but is it art? +% +It's difficult to see the picture when you are inside the frame. +% +It's from Casablanca. I've been waiting all my life to use that line. + -- Woody Allen, "Play It Again, Sam" +% +"It's kind of fun to do the impossible." + -- Walt Disney +% +It's more than magnificent -- it's mediocre. + -- Sam Goldwyn +% +It's not easy, being green. + -- Kermit the Frog +% +It's not the valleys in life I dread so much as the dips. + -- Garfield +% +IV. The time required for an object to fall twenty stories is greater than or equal to the time it takes for whoever knocked it off the ledge to spiral down twenty flights to attempt to capture it unbroken. + Such an object is inevitably priceless, the attempt to capture it + inevitably unsuccessful. + V. All principles of gravity are negated by fear. + Psychic forces are sufficient in most bodies for a shock to propel + them directly away from the earth's surface. A spooky noise or an + adversary's signature sound will induce motion upward, usually to + the cradle of a chandelier, a treetop, or the crest of a flagpole. + The feet of a character who is running or the wheels of a speeding + auto need never touch the ground, especially when in flight. +VI. As speed increases, objects can be in several places at once. + This is particularly true of tooth-and-claw fights, in which a + character's head may be glimpsed emerging from the cloud of + altercation at several places simultaneously. This effect is common + as well among bodies that are spinning or being throttled. A "wacky" + character has the option of self-replication only at manic high + speeds and may ricochet off walls to achieve the velocity required. + -- Esquire, "O'Donnell's Laws of Cartoon Motion", June 1980 +% +James Joyce -- an essentially private man who wished his total indifference to public notice to be universally recognized. + -- Tom Stoppard +% +James McNeill Whistler's (painter of "Whistler's Mother") failure in his West Point chemistry examination once provoked him to remark in later life, "If silicon had been a gas, I should have been a major general." +% +Jane and I got mixed up with a television show -- or as we call it back east here: TV -- a clever contraction derived from the words Terrible Vaudeville. However, it is our latest medium -- we call it a medium because nothing's well done. It was discovered, I suppose you've heard, by a man named Fulton Berle, and it has already revolutionized social grace by cutting down parlour conversation to two sentences: "What's on television?" and "Good night". + -- Goodman Ace, letter to Groucho Marx, in The Groucho + Letters, 1967 +% +Jim, it's Grace at the bank. I checked your Christmas Club account. You don't have five-hundred dollars. You have fifty. Sorry, computer foul-up! + -- "The Rockford Files" +% +Jim, it's Jack. I'm at the airport. I'm going to Tokyo and wanna pay you the five-hundred I owe you. Catch you next year when I get back! + -- "The Rockford Files" +% +Jim, this is Janelle. I'm flying tonight, so I can't make our date, and I gotta find a safe place for Daffy. He loves you, Jim! It's only two days, and you'll see. Great Danes are no problem! + -- "The Rockford Files" +% +Jim, this is Matty down at Ralph's and Mark's. Some guy named Angel Martin just ran up a fifty buck bar tab. And now he wants to charge it to you. You gonna pay it? + -- "The Rockford Files" +% +JOHN PAUL ELECTED POPE!! + +(George and Ringo miffed.) +% +Just because you like my stuff doesn't mean I owe you anything. + -- Bob Dylan +% +Just close your eyes, tap your heels together three times, and think to yourself, `There's no place like home.' + -- Glynda the Good +% +Just once I would like to persuade the audience not to wear any article of blue denim. If only they could see themselves in a pair of brown corduroys like mine instead of this awful, boring blue denim. I don't enjoy the sky or sea as much as I used to because of this Levi character. If Jesus Christ came back today, He and I would get into our brown corduroys and go to the nearest jean store and overturn the racks of blue denim. Then we'd get crucified in the morning. + -- Ian Anderson, of Jethro Tull +% +Just once, I wish we would encounter an alien menace that wasn't immune to bullets. + -- The Brigadier, "Dr. Who" +% +Lamonte Cranston once hired a new Chinese manservant. While describing his duties to the new man, Lamonte pointed to a bowl of candy on the coffee table and warned him that he was not to take any. Some days later, the new manservant was cleaning up, with no one at home, and decided to sample some of the candy. Just than, Cranston walked in, spied the manservant at the candy, and said: + "Pardon me Choy, is that the Shadow's nugate you chew?" +% + Lassie looked brilliant, in part because the farm family she lived with was made up of idiots. Remember? One of them was always getting pinned under the tractor, and Lassie was always rushing back to the farmhouse to alert the other ones. She'd whimper and tug at their sleeves, and they'd always waste precious minutes saying things: "Do you think something's wrong? Do you think she wants us to follow her? What is it, girl?", etc., as if this had never happened before, instead of every week. What with all the time these people spent pinned under the tractor, I don't see how they managed to grow any crops whatsoever. They probably got by on federal crop supports, which Lassie filed the applications for. + -- Dave Barry +% +Lay off the muses, it's a very tough dollar. + -- S.J. Perelman +% +Lensmen eat Jedi for breakfast. +% + Leslie West heads for the sticks, to Providence, Rhode Island and tries to hide behind a beard. No good. There are still too many people and too many stares, always taunting, always smirking. He moves to the outskirts of town. He finds a place to live -- huge mansion, dirt cheap, caretaker included. He plugs in his guitar and plays as loud as he wants, day and night, and there's no one to laugh or boo or even look bored. + Nobody's cut the grass in months. What's happened to that caretaker? What neighborhood people there are start to talk, and what kids there are start to get curious. A 13 year-old blond with an angelic face misses supper. Before the summer's end, four more teenagers have disappeared. The senior class president, Barnard-bound come autumn, tells Mom she's going out to a movie one night and stays out. The town's up in arms, but just before the police take action, the kids turn up. They've found a purpose. They go home for their stuff and tell the folks not to worry but they'll be going now. They're in a band. + -- Ira Kaplan +% +Life is like arriving late for a movie, having to figure out what was going on without bothering everybody with a lot of questions, and then being unexpectedly called away before you find out how it ends. +% +Like ya know? Rock 'N Roll is an esoteric language that unlocks the creativity chambers in people's brains, and like totally activates their essential hipness, which of course is like totally necessary for saving the earth, like because the first thing in saving this world, is getting rid of stupid and square attitudes and having fun. + -- Senior Year Quote +% +Linus: Hi! I thought it was you. I've been watching you from way off... You're looking great! +Snoopy: That's nice to know. The secret of life is to look good at a distance. +% +Linus: I guess it's wrong always to be worrying about tomorrow. Maybe we should think only about today. +Charlie Brown: No, that's giving up. I'm still hoping that yesterday will get better. +% +Live fast, die young, and leave a good looking corpse. + -- James Dean +% +Live from New York ... It's Saturday Night! +% +Love thy neighbor, tune thy piano. +% +Lucy: Dance, dance, dance. That is all you ever do. Can't you be serious for once? +Snoopy: She is right! I think I had better think of the more important things in life! + (pause) + Tomorrow!! +% +Luke, I'm yer father, eh. Come over to the dark side, you hoser. + -- Dave Thomas, "Strange Brew" +% +Maj. Bloodnok: Seagoon, you're a coward! +Seagoon: Only in the holiday season. +Maj. Bloodnok: Ah, another Noel Coward! +% +Mandrell: "You know what I think?" +Doctor: "Ah, ah that's a catch question. With a brain your size you + don't think, right?" + -- Dr. Who +% +Many of the characters are fools and they are always playing tricks on me and treating me badly. + -- Jorge Luis Borges, from "Writers on Writing" by Jon Winokur +% +Maryel brought her bat into Exit once and started whacking people on the dance floor. Now everyone's doing it. It's called grand slam dancing. + -- Ransford, Chicago Reader 10/7/83 +% +Mate, this parrot wouldn't VOOM if you put four million volts through it! + -- Monty Python +% +"Microwave oven? Whaddya mean, it's a microwave oven? I've been watching Channel 4 on the thing for two weeks." +% +Might as well be frank, monsieur. It would take a miracle to get you out of Casablanca and the Germans have outlawed miracles. + -- Casablanca +% +Mike: "The Fourth Dimension is a shambles?" +Bernie: "Nobody ever empties the ashtrays. People are SO inconsiderate." + -- Gary Trudeau, "Doonesbury" +% +Minnie Mouse is a slow maze learner. +% +Modern art is what happens when painters stop looking at girls and persuade themselves that they have a better idea. + -- John Ciardi +% +Mos Eisley Spaceport; you'll not find a more wretched collection of villainy and disreputable types... + -- Obi-wan Kenobi, "Star Wars" +% +Mr. Rockford, this is the Thomas Crown School of Dance and Contemporary Etiquette. We aren't going to call again! Now you want these free lessons or what? + -- "The Rockford Files" +% +Mr. Rockford? Miss Collins from the Bureau of Licenses. We got your renewal before the extended deadline but not your check. I'm sorry but at midnight you're no longer licensed as an investigator. + -- "The Rockford Files" +% +Mr. Rockford? This is Betty Joe Withers. I got four shirts of yours from the Bo Peep Cleaners by mistake. I don't know why they gave me men's shirts but they're going back. + -- "The Rockford Files" +% +Mr. Rockford? You don't know me, but I'd like to hire you. Could you call me at... My name is... uh... Never mind, forget it! + -- "The Rockford Files" +% +My advice to you, my violent friend, is to seek out gold and sit on it. + -- The Dragon to Grendel, in John Gardner's "Grendel" +% +My band career ended late in my senior year when John Cooper and I threw my amplifier out the dormitory window. We did not act in haste. First we checked to make sure the amplifier would fit through the frame, using the belt from my bathrobe to measure, then we picked up the amplifier and backed up to my bedroom door. Then we rushed forward, shouting "The WHO! The WHO!" and we launched my amplifier perfectly, as though we had been doing it all our lives, clean through the window and down onto the sidewalk, where a small but appreciative crowd had gathered. I would like to be able to say that this was a symbolic act, an effort on my part to break cleanly away from one state in my life and move on to another, but the truth is, Cooper and I really just wanted to find out what it would sound like. It sounded OK. + -- Dave Barry, "The Snake" +% +"My life is a soap opera, but who has the rights?" + -- MadameX +% +My tears stuck in their little ducts, refusing to be jerked. + -- Peter Stack, movie review + +His performance is so wooden you want to spray him with Liquid Pledge. + -- John Stark, movie review +% +No Civil War picture ever made a nickel. + -- MGM executive Irving Thalberg to Louis B. Mayer about + film rights to "Gone With the Wind". + Cerf/Navasky, "The Experts Speak" +% +No house should ever be on any hill or on anything. It should be of the hill, belonging to it. + -- Frank Lloyd Wright +% +No poet or novelist wishes he was the only one who ever lived, but most of them wish they were the only one alive, and quite a number fondly believe their wish has been granted. + -- W.H. Auden, "The Dyer's Hand" +% +No two persons ever read the same book. + -- Edmund Wilson +% +"No, `Eureka' is Greek for `This bath is too hot.'" + -- Dr. Who +% +Nobody can be exactly like me. Sometimes even I have trouble doing it. + -- Tallulah Bankhead +% +NOBODY EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION! +% +Noone ever built a statue to a critic. +% +Not all who own a harp are harpers. + -- Marcus Terentius Varro +% +Notes for a ballet, "The Spell": ... Suddenly Sigmund hears the flutter of wings, and a group of wild swans flies across the moon ... Sigmund is astounded to see that their leader is part swan and part woman -- unfortunately, divided lengthwise. She enchants Sigmund, who is careful not to make any poultry jokes. + -- Woody Allen +% +Oh Dad! We're ALL Devo! +% + "Oh sure, this costume may look silly, but it lets me get in and out of dangerous situations -- I work for a federal task force doing a survey on urban crime. Look, here's my ID, and here's a number you can call, that will put you through to our central base in Atlanta. Go ahead, call -- they'll confirm who I am. + "Unless, of course, the Astro-Zombies have destroyed it." + -- Captain Freedom +% +Oh, Aunty Em, it's so good to be home! +% +Old MacDonald had an agricultural real estate tax abatement. +% +Old musicians never die, they just decompose. +% +Once, I read that a man be never stronger than when he truly realizes how weak he is. + -- Jim Starlin, "Captain Marvel #31" +% +One big pile is better than two little piles. + -- Arlo Guthrie +% +Oprah Winfrey has an incredible talent for getting the weirdest people to talk to. And you just HAVE to watch it. "Blind, masochistic minority, crippled, depressed, government latrine diggers, and the women who love them too much on the next Oprah Winfrey." +% +Penn's aunts made great apple pies at low prices. No one else in town could compete with the pie rates of Penn's aunts. +% +People in general do not willingly read if they have anything else to amuse them. + -- S. Johnson +% +Perhaps no person can be a poet, or even enjoy poetry without a certain unsoundness of mind. + -- Thomas Macaulay +% +Plato, by the way, wanted to banish all poets from his proposed Utopia because they were liars. The truth was that Plato knew philosophers couldn't compete successfully with poets. + -- Kilgore Trout (Philip J. Farmer), "Venus on the Half Shell" +% +Playing an unamplified electric guitar is like strumming on a picnic table. + -- Dave Barry, "The Snake" +% +Please, won't somebody tell me what diddie-wa-diddie means? +% +Plots are like girdles. Hidden, they hold your interest; revealed, they're of no interest except to fetishists. Like girdles, they attempt to contain an uncontainable experience. + -- R.S. Knapp +% +Potahto' Pictures Productions Presents: + + SPUD ROGERS OF THE 25TH CENTURY: Story of an Air Force potato that's left in a rarely used chow hall for over two centuries and wakes up in a world +populated by soybean created imitations under the evil Dick Tater. Thanks to him, the soy-potatoes learn that being a 'tater is where it's at. Memorable line, "'Cause I'm just a stud spud!" + + FRIDAY THE 13TH DINER SERIES: Crazed potato who was left in a fryer too long and was charbroiled carelessly returns to wreak havoc on unsuspecting, would-be teen camp cooks. Scenes include a girl being stuffed with chives and Fleischman's Margarine and a boy served up on a side dish with beets and dressing. Definitely not for the squeamish, or those on diets that are driving them crazy. + + FRIDAY THE 13TH DINER II,III,IV,V,VI: Much, much more of the same. Except with sour cream. +% +Potahto' Pictures Productions Presents: + + THE TATERNATOR: Cyborg spud returns from the future to present-day McDonald's restaurant to kill the potatoess (girl 'tater) who will give birth to the world's largest french fry (The Dark Powers of Burger King are clearly behind this). Most quotable line: "Ah'll be baked..." + + A FISTFUL OF FRIES: Western in which our hero, The Spud with No Name, rides into a town that's deprived of carbohydrates thanks to the evil takeover +of the low-cal Scallopinni Brothers. Plenty of smokeouts, fry-em-ups, and general butter-melting by all. + + FOR A FEW FRIES MORE: Takes up where AFOF left off! Cameo by Walter Cronkite, as every man's common 'tater! +% +Prizes are for children. + -- Charles Ives, upon being given, but refusing, the Pulitzer prize +% +Producers seem to be so prejudiced against actors who've had no training. And there's no reason for it. So what if I didn't attend the Royal Academy for twelve years? I'm still a professional trying to be the best actress I can. Why doesn't anyone send me the scripts that Faye Dunaway gets? + -- Farrah Fawcett-Majors +% +Public use of any portable music system is a virtually guaranteed indicator of sociopathic tendencies. + -- Zoso +% +Publishing a volume of verse is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo. +% +Pure drivel tends to drive ordinary drivel off the TV screen. +% +Rascal, am I? Take THAT! + -- Errol Flynn +% +Recently deceased blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan "comes to" after his death. He sees Jimi Hendrix sitting next to him, tuning his guitar. "Holy cow," he thinks to himself, "this guy is my idol." Over at the microphone, about to sing, are Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin, and the bassist is the late Barry Oakley of the Allman Brothers. So Stevie Ray's thinking, "Oh, wow! I've died and gone to rock and roll heaven." Just then, Karen Carpenter walks in, sits down at the drums, and says: +"'Close to You'. Hit it, boys!" + -- Told by Penn Jillette, of magic/comedy duo Penn and Teller +% +Rembrandt is not to be compared in the painting of character with our extraordinarily gifted English artist, Mr. Rippingille. + -- John Hunt, British editor, scholar and art critic + Cerf/Navasky, "The Experts Speak" +% +"Rembrandt's first name was Beauregard, which is why he never used it." + -- Dave Barry +% +Satire is tragedy plus time. + -- Lenny Bruce +% +Satire is what closes in New Haven. +% +Satire is what closes Saturday night. + -- George Kaufman +% +'Scuse me, while I kiss the sky! + -- Robert James Marshall (Jimi) Hendrix +% +She ran the gamut of emotions from 'A' to 'B'. + -- Dorothy Parker, on a Kate Hepburn performance +% +"She said, `I know you ... you cannot sing'. I said, `That's nothing, you should hear me play piano.'" + -- Morrisey +% +She was good at playing abstract confusion in the same way a midget is good at being short. + -- Clive James, on Marilyn Monroe +% +Shhh... be vewy, vewy, quiet! I'm hunting wabbits... +% +Show business is just like high school, except you get paid. + -- Martin Mull +% +Sir, it's very possible this asteroid is not stable. + -- C3P0 +% +Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern +art. + -- Tom Stoppard +% +Smile! You're on Candid Camera. +% +Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes? + -- Indiana Jones, "Raiders of the Lost Ark" +% +Snoopy: No problem is so big that it can't be run away from. +% +Snow White has become a camera buff. She spends hours and hours shooting pictures of the seven dwarfs and their antics. Then she mails the exposed film to a cut rate photo service. It takes weeks for the developed film to arrive in the mail, but that is all right with Snow White. She clears the table, washes the dishes and sweeps the floor, all the while singing "Someday my prints will come." +% +So do the noble fall. For they are ever caught in a trap of their own making. A trap -- walled by duty, and locked by reality. Against the greater force they must fall -- for, against that force they fight because of duty, because of obligations. And when the noble fall, the base remain. The base -- whose only purpose is the corruption of what the noble did protect. Whose only purpose is to destroy. The noble: who, even when fallen, retain a vestige of strength. For theirs is a strength born of things other than mere force. Theirs is a strength supreme... theirs is the strength -- to restore. + -- Gerry Conway, "Thor", #193 +% + So Richard and I decided to try to catch [the small shark]. With a great deal of strategy and effort and shouting, we managed to maneuver the shark, over the course of about a half-hour, to a sort of corner of the lagoon, so that it had no way to escape other than to flop up onto the land and evolve. Richard and I were inching toward it, sort of crouched over, when all of a sudden it turned around and -- I can still remember the sensation I felt at that moment, primarily in the armpit area -- headed right straight toward us. + Many people would have panicked at this point. But Richard and I were not "many people." We were experienced waders, and we kept our heads. We did exactly what the textbook says you should do when you're unarmed and a shark that is nearly two feet long turns on you in water up to your lower calves: We sprinted I would say 600 yards in the opposite direction, using a sprinting style such that the bottoms of our feet never once went below the surface of the water. We ran all the way to the far shore, and if we had been in a Warner Brothers cartoon we would have run right INTO the beach, and you would have seen these two mounds of sand racing across the island until they bonked into trees and coconuts fell onto their heads. + -- Dave Barry, "The Wonders of Sharks on TV" +% +Some men who fear that they are playing second fiddle aren't in the band at all. +% +Some performers on television appear to be horrible people, but when you finally get to know them in person, they turn out to be even worse. + -- Avery +% +"Spare no expense to save money on this one." + -- Samuel Goldwyn +% +Star Wars is adolescent nonsense; Close Encounters is obscurantist drivel; Star Trek can turn your brains to puree of bat guano; and the greatest science fiction series of all time is Doctor Who! And I'll take you all on, one-by-one or all in a bunch to back it up! + -- Harlan Ellison +% +"Surely you can't be serious." +"I am serious, and stop calling me Shirley." + -- "Airplane" +% +Talking about music is like dancing about architecture. + -- Laurie Anderson +% +Tallulah Bankhead barged down the Nile last night as Cleopatra and sank. + -- John Mason Brown, drama critic +% +Television -- the longest amateur night in history. + -- Robert Carson +% +Television has brought back murder into the home -- where it belongs. + -- Alfred Hitchcock +% +Television has proved that people will look at anything rather than each other. + -- Ann Landers +% +Television is a medium because anything well done is rare. + -- attributed to both Fred Allen and Ernie Kovacs +% +Television is now so desperately hungry for material that it is scraping the top of the barrel. + -- Gore Vidal +% +Ten years of rejection slips is nature's way of telling you to stop writing. + -- R. Geis +% +That's no moon... + -- Obi-wan Kenobi +% +The Angels want to wear my red shoes. + -- E. Costello +% +The best definition of a gentleman is a man who can play the accordion -- but doesn't. + -- Tom Crichton +% +The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastly greater than that of any other animals. Some of their most esteemed inventions have no other apparent purpose, for example, the dinner party of more than two, the epic poem, and the science of metaphysics. + -- H. L. Mencken +% +The chief enemy of creativity is "good" sense + -- Picasso +% +The covers of this book are too far apart. + -- Book review by Ambrose Bierce. +% +The difference between waltzes and disco is mostly one of volume. + -- T.K. +% +The faster we go, the rounder we get. + -- The Grateful Dead +% +The first thing I do in the morning is brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue. + -- Dorothy Parker +% +The Great Movie Posters: + +*A Giggle Gurgling Gulp of Glee* +With Pretty Girls, Peppy Scenes, and Gorgeous Revues -- plus a good story. + -- Tea with a Kick (1924) + +Whoopie! Let's go!... Hand-picked Beauties doing cute tricks! +GET IN THE KNOW FOR THE HEY-HEY WHOOPIE! + -- The Wild Party (1929) + +YOU HEAR HIM MAKE LOVE! +DIX -- the dashing soldier! + DIX -- the bold adventurer! + DIX -- the throbbing lover! + -- The Wheel of Life (1929) + +SEE CHARLES BUTTERWORTH DRIVE A STREETCAR AND SING LOVE +SONGS TO HIS MARE "MITZIE"! + -- The Night is Young (1934) +% +The Great Movie Posters: + +NEW -- SICKENING HORROR to make your STOMACH TURN and FLESH CRAWL! + -- Frankenstein's Bloody Terror (1968) + +LUST-MAD MEN AND LAWLESS WOMEN IN A VICIOUS AND SENSUOUS ORGY OF SLAUGHTER! + -- Five Bloody Graves (1969) + +The family that slays together stays together. + -- Bloody Mama (1970) +% +The Great Movie Posters: + +An AVALANCHE of KILLER WORMS! + -- Squirm (1976) + +Most Movies Live Less Than Two Hours. +This Is One of Everlasting Torment! + -- The New House on the Left (1977) + +WE ARE GOING TO EAT YOU! + -- Zombie (1980) + +It's not human and it's got an axe. + -- The Prey (1981) +% +The Great Movie Posters: + +Different! Daring! Dynamic! Defying! Dumbfounding! +SEE Uncle Tom lead the Negroes to FREEDOM! +... Now, all the SENSUAL and VIOLENT passions Roots couldn't show on TV! + -- Uncle Tom's Cabin (1972) + +An appalling amalgam of carnage and carnality! + -- Flesh and Blood Show (1973) + +WHEN THE CATS ARE HUNGRY... +RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! +Alone, only a harmless pet... + One Thousand Strong, They Become a Man-Eating Machine! + -- The Night of a Thousand Cats (1972) + +They're Over-Exposed +But Not Under-Developed! + -- Cover Girl Models (1976) +% +The Great Movie Posters: + +HOODLUMS FROM ANOTHER WORLD ON A RAY-GUN RAMPAGE! + -- Teenagers from Outher Space (1959) + +Which will be Her Mate... MAN OR BEAST? +Meet Velda -- the Kind of Woman -- Man or Gorilla would kill... to Keep. + -- Untamed Mistress (1960) + +NOW AN ALL-MIGHTY ALL-NEW MOTION PICTURE BRINGS THEM TOGETHER FOR THE FIRST TIME... HISTORY'S MOST GIGANTIC MONSTERS IN COMBAT ATOP MOUNT FUJI! + -- King Kong vs. Godzilla (1963) +% +The Great Movie Posters: + +HOT STEEL BETWEEN THEIR LEGS! + -- The Cycle Savages (1969) + +The Hand that Rocks the Cradle... Has no Flesh on It! + -- Who Slew Auntie Roo? (1971) + +TWO GREAT BLOOD HORRORS TO RIP OUT YOUR GUTS! + -- I Eat Your Skin & I Drink Your Blood (1971 double-bill) + +They Went In People and Came Out Hamburger! + -- The Corpse Grinders (1971) +% +The Great Movie Posters: + +KATHERINE HEPBURN as the lying, stealing, singing, preying witch girl of the Ozarks... "Low down white trash"? Maybe so -- but let her hear you say it and she'll break your head to prove herself a lady! + -- Spitfire (1934) + +Do Native Women Live With Apes? + -- Love Life of a Gorilla (1937) + +JUNGLE KISS!! + When she looked into his eyes, felt his arms around her -- she was no longer Tura, mysterious white goddess of the jungle tribes -- she was no longer the frozen-hearted high priestess under whose hypnotic spell the worshippers of the great crocodile god meekly bowed -- she was a girl in love! + SEE the ravening charge of the hundred scared CROCODILES! + -- Her Jungle Love (1938) + +LOVE! HATE! JOY! FEAR! TORMENT! PANIC! SHAME! RAGE! + -- Intermezzo (1939) +% +The Great Movie Posters: + +POWERFUL! SHOCKING! RAW! ROUGH! CHALLENGING! SEE A LITTLE GIRL MOLESTED! + -- Never Take Candy from a Stranger (1963) + +She Sins in Mobile -- +Marries in Houston -- +Loses Her Baby in Dallas -- +Leaves Her Husband in Tuscon -- +MEETS HARRU IN SAN DIEGO!... +FIRST -- HARLOW! +THEN -- MONROE! +NOW -- McCLANAHAN!!! + -- The Rotten Apple (1963), Rue McClanahan + +*NOT FOR SISSIES! DON'T COME IF YOU'RE CHICKEN! +A Horrifying Movie of Wierd Beauties and Shocking Monsters... +1001 WIERDEST SCENES EVER!! MOST SHOCKING THRILLER OF THE CENTURY! + -- Teenage Psycho meets Bloody Mary (1964) (Alternate Title: + The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and + Became Mixed Up Zombies) +% +The Great Movie Posters: + +AN ASTRONAUT WENT UP- A "GUESS WHAT" CAME DOWN! + The picture that comes complete with a 10-foot tall monster to give you the wim-wams! + -- Monster a Go-Go (1965) +% +The Great Movie Posters: + +SEE rebel guerrillas torn apart by trucks! +SEE corpses cut to pieces and fed to dogs and vultures! +SEE the monkey trained to perform nursing duties for her paralyzed owner! + -- Sweet and Savage (1983) + +What a Guy! What a Gal! What a Pair! + -- Stroker Ace (1983) + +It's always better when you come again! + -- Porky's II: The Next Day (1983) + +You Don't Have to Go to Texas for a Chainsaw Massacre! + -- Pieces (1983) +% +The Great Movie Posters: + +WHAT'S THE SECRET INGREDIENT USED BY THE MAD BUTCHER FOR HIS SUPERB SAUSAGES? + -- Meat is Meat (1972) + +TODAY the Pond! +TOMORROW the World! + -- Frogs (1972) +% +The Great Movie Posters: + +She's got the biggest six-shooters in the West! + -- The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend (1949) + +CAST OF 3,000! +4 WRITERS, +2 DIRECTORS, +3 CAMERAMEN, +3 PRODUCERS! +1 YEAR TO MAKE THIS FILM -- +24 YEARS TO REHEARSE -- +20 YEARS TO DISTRIBUTE! + BEAUTIFUL BEYOND WORDS! + AWE-INSPIRING! VITAL! +THE PRINCE OF PEACE PROVIDES THE ANSWER TO EVERY PROBLEM! +Be Brave--bring your troubles and your family to: + HISTORY'S MOST SUBLIME EVENT! YOU'LL FIND GOD RIGHT IN THERE! + -- The Prince of Peace (1948). Starring members of the + Wichita Mountain Pageant featuring Millard Coody as Jesus. +% +The Great Movie Posters: + +The Miracle of the Age!!! A LION in your lap! A LOVER in your arms! + -- Bwana Devil (1952) + +OVERWHELMING! ELECTRIFYING! BAFFLING! +Fire Can't Burn Them! Bullets Can't Kill Them! See the Unfolding of the Mysteries of the Moon as Murderous Robot Monsters Descend Upon the Earth! You've Never Seen Anything Like It! Neither Has the World! + SEE... Robots from Space in All Their Glory!!! + -- Robot Monster (1953) + +1,965 pyramids, 5,337 dancing girls, one million swaying bullrushes, 802 scared bulls! + -- The Egyptian (1954) +% +The Great Movie Posters: + +The nightmare terror of the slithering eye that unleashed agonizing horror on a screaming world! + -- The Crawling Eye (1958) + +SEE a female colossus... her mountainous torso, skyscraper limbs, giant desires! + -- Attack of the Fifty-Foot Woman (1958) + +% +The Great Movie Posters: + +They hungered for her treasure! And died for her pleasure! +SEE Man-Fish Battle Shark-Man-Killer! + -- The Golden Mistress (1954) + +See Jane Russell in 3-D; She'll Knock Both Your Eyes Out! + -- The French Line (1954) + +See Jane Russell Shake Her Tamborines... and Drive Cornel WILDE! + -- Hot Blood (1956) +% +The Great Movie Posters: + +When You're Six Tons -- And They Call You Killer -- It's Hard To Make Friends... + -- Namu, the Killer Whale (1966) + +Meet the Girls with the Thermo-Nuclear Navels! + -- Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs (1966) + +A GHASTLY TALE DRENCHED WITH GOUTS OF BLOOD SPURTING FROM THE VICTIMS OF A CRAZED MADMAN'S LUST. + -- A Taste of Blood (1967) +% +The Hollywood tradition I like best is called "sucking up to the stars." + -- Johnny Carson +% +The horror... the horror! +% +The human animal differs from the lesser primates in his passion for lists of "Ten Best". + -- H. Allen Smith +% +The human brain is a wonderful thing. It starts working the moment you are born, and never stops until you stand up to speak in public. + -- Sir George Jessel +% +"The human brain is like an enormous fish -- it is flat and slimy and +has gills through which it can see." + -- Monty Python +% +The key to building a superstar is to keep their mouth shut. To reveal an artist to the people can be to destroy him. It isn't to anyone's advantage to see the truth. + -- Bob Ezrin, rock music producer +% +The last vestiges of the old Republic have been swept away. + -- Governor Tarkin +% +The mome rath isn't born that could outgrabe me. + -- Nicol Williamson +% +The old complaint that mass culture is designed for eleven-year-olds is of course a shameful canard. The key age has traditionally been more like fourteen. + -- Robert Christgau, "Esquire" +% +The older I grow, the less important the comma becomes. Let the reader catch his own breath. + -- Elizabeth Clarkson Zwart +% +The only "ism" Hollywood believes in is plagiarism. + -- Dorothy Parker +% +The only real advantage to punk music is that nobody can whistle it. +% +The plot was designed in a light vein that somehow became varicose. + -- David Lardner +% +The profession of book writing makes horse racing seem like a solid, stable business. + -- John Steinbeck + [Horse racing *is* a stable business ...] +% +The Ranger isn't gonna like it, Yogi. +% +The real trouble with reality is that there's no background music. +% +The story you are about to hear is true. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent. +% +The streets were dark with something more than night. + -- Raymond Chandler +% +The sun never sets on those who ride into it. + -- RKO +% +The trouble with superheros is what to do between phone booths. + -- Ken Kesey +% +The typewriting machine, when played with expression, is no more annoying than the piano when played by a sister or near relation. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +The ultimate game show will be the one where somebody gets killed at the end. + -- Chuck Barris, creator of "The Gong Show" +% +The world has many unintentionally cruel mechanisms that are not designed for people who walk on their hands. + -- John Irving, "The World According to Garp" +% +The Worst Musical Trio + There are few bad musicians who have a chance to give a recital at a famous concert hall while still learning the rudiments of their instrument. This happened about thirty years ago to the son of a Rumanian gentleman who was owed a personal favour by Georges Enesco, the celebrated violinist. Enesco agreed to give lessons to the son who was quite unhampered by great musical talent. + Three years later the boy's father insisted that he give a public concert. "His aunt said that nobody plays the violin better than he does. A cousin heard him the other day and screamed with enthusiasm." Although Enesco feared the consequences, he arranged a recital at the Salle Gaveau in Paris. However, nobody bought a ticket since the soloist was unknown. + "Then you must accompany him on the piano," said the boy's father, "and it will be a sell out." + Reluctantly, Enesco agreed and it was. On the night an excited audience gathered. Before the concert began Enesco became nervous and asked for someone to turn his pages. + In the audience was Alfred Cortot, the brilliant pianist, who volunteered and made his way to the stage. + The soloist was of uniformly low standard and next morning the music critic of Le Figaro wrote: "There was a strange concert at the Salle Gaveau last night. The man whom we adore when he plays the violin played the piano. Another whom we adore when he plays the piano turned the pages. But the man who should have turned the pages played the violin." + -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" +% +There are three reasons for becoming a writer: the first is that you need the money; the second that you have something to say that you think the world should know; the third is that you can't think what to do with the long winter evenings. + -- Quentin Crisp +% +There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are. + -- Somerset Maugham +% +There are two jazz musicians who are great buddies. They hang out and play together for years, virtually inseparable. Unfortunately, one of them is struck by a truck and killed. About a week later his friend wakes up in the middle of the night with a start because he can feel a presence in the room. He calls out, "Who's there? Who's there? What's going on?" + "It's me -- Bob," replies a faraway voice. + Excitedly he sits up in bed. "Bob! Bob! Is that you? Where are you?" + "Well," says the voice, "I'm in heaven now." + "Heaven! You're in heaven! That's wonderful! What's it like?" + "It's great, man. I gotta tell you, I'm jamming up here every day. I'm playing with Bird, and 'Trane, and Count Basie drops in all the time! Man it is smokin'!" + "Oh, wow!" says his friend. "That sounds fantastic, tell me more, tell me more!" + "Let me put it this way," continues the voice. "There's good news and bad news. The good news is that these guys are in top form. I mean I have *never* heard them sound better. They are *wailing* up here." + "The bad news is that God has this girlfriend that sings..." +% +There are two ways of disliking art. One is to dislike it. The other is to like it rationally. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +There are two ways of disliking poetry; one way is to dislike it, the other is to read Pope. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +There is much Obi-Wan did not tell you. + -- Darth Vader +% +There is nothing wrong with writing ... as long as it is done in private and you wash your hands afterward. +% +There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +There's a trick to the Graceful Exit. It begins with the vision to recognize when a job, a life stage, a relationship is over -- and to let go. It means leaving what's over without denying its validity or its past importance in our lives. It involves a sense of future, a belief that every exit line is an entry, that we are moving on, rather than out. The trick of retiring well may be the trick of living well. It's hard to recognize that life isn't a holding action, but a process. It's hard to learn that we don't leave the best parts of ourselves behind, back in the dugout or the office. We own what we learned back there. The experiences and the growth are grafted onto our lives. And when we exit, we can take ourselves along -- quite gracefully. + -- Ellen Goodman +% +There's nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself. + -- J.S. Bach +% +There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit at a typewriter and open a vein. + -- Red Smith +% +There's something the technicians need to learn from the artists. If it isn't aesthetically pleasing, it's probably wrong. +% +There's such a thing as too much point on a pencil. + -- H. Allen Smith, "Let the Crabgrass Grow" +% +They can't stop us... we're on a mission from God! + -- The Blues Brothers +% +... TheysaidDoyouseethebiggreenglowinthedarkhouseuponthehill?andIsaidYesIseethebiggreenglowinthedarkhouseuponthehillTheresabigdarkforestbetweenmeandthebiggreenglowinthedarkhouseuponthehillandalittleoldladyridingonaHoovervacuumcleanersayingIllgetyoumyprettyandyourlittledogTototoo ... + +I don't even *HAVE* a dog Toto... +% +This door is baroquen, please wiggle Handel. +(If I wiggle Handel, will it wiggle Bach?) + -- Found on a door in the MSU music building +% +This is Jim Rockford. +At the tone leave your name and message; I'll get back to you. + +This is Maria, Liberty Bail Bonds. Your client, Todd Lieman, skipped and his bail is forfeit. That's the pink slip on your '74 Firebird, I believe. Sorry, Jim, bring it on over. + +This is Marilyn Reed, I wanta talk to you... Is this a machine? I don't talk to machines! [Click] + -- "The Rockford Files" +% +This is the LAST time I take travel suggestions from Ray Bradbury! +% +This is the Baron. Angel Martin tells me you buy information. Ok, meet me at one a.m. behind the bus depot, bring five-hundred dollars and come alone. I'm serious! + -- "The Rockford Files" +% +This novel is not to be tossed lightly aside, but to be hurled with great force. + -- Dorothy Parker +% +This unit... must... survive. +% +This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it. + -- Dorothy Parker +% + Three actors, Tom, Fred, and Cec, wanted to do the jousting scene from Don Quixote for a local TV show. "I'll play the title role," proposed Tom. "Fred can portray Sancho Panza, and Cecil B. De Mille." +% +Three hours a day will produce as much as a man ought to write. + -- Trollope +% +To be is to do. + -- I. Kant +To do is to be. + -- A. Sartre +Do be a Do Bee! + -- Miss Connie, Romper Room +Do be do be do! + -- F. Sinatra +Yabba-Dabba-Doo! + -- F. Flintstone +% +Today you'll start getting heavy metal radio on your dentures. +% +Today's thrilling story has been brought to you by Mushies, the great new cereal that gets soggy even without milk or cream. Join us soon for more spectacular adventure starring... Tippy, the Wonder Dog! + -- Bob & Ray +% +"Today, of course, it is considered very poor taste to use the F-word except in major motion pictures." + -- Dave Barry, "$#$%#^%!^%&@%@!" +% +Traveling through hyperspace isn't like dusting crops, boy. + -- Han Solo +% +Trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle. + -- Michelangelo +% +"Truth is stranger than fiction, because fiction has to make sense." +% +TV is chewing gum for the eyes. + -- Frank Lloyd Wright +% +Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a book. + -- Edward Gibbon +% +Use an accordion. Go to jail. + -- KFOG, San Francisco +% +Use what talents you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best. + -- Henry Van Dyke +% +Very few people do anything creative after the age of thirty-five. The reason is that very few people do anything creative before the age of thirty-five. + -- Joel Hildebrand +% + VII. Certain bodies can pass through solid walls painted to resemble tunnel entrances; others cannot. + This trompe l'oeil inconsistency has baffled generations, but at least + it is known that whoever paints an entrance on a wall's surface to + trick an opponent will be unable to pursue him into this theoretical + space. The painter is flattened against the wall when he attempts to + follow into the painting. This is ultimately a problem of art, not + of science. +VIII. Any violent rearrangement of feline matter is impermanent. + Cartoon cats possess even more deaths than the traditional nine lives + might comfortably afford. They can be decimated, spliced, splayed, + accordion-pleated, spindled, or disassembled, but they cannot be + destroyed. After a few moments of blinking self pity, they reinflate, + elongate, snap back, or solidify. + IX. For every vengeance there is an equal and opposite revengeance. + This is the one law of animated cartoon motion that also applies to + the physical world at large. For that reason, we need the relief of + watching it happen to a duck instead. + X. Everything falls faster than an anvil. + Examples too numerous to mention from the Roadrunner cartoons. + -- Esquire, "O'Donnell's Laws of Cartoon Motion", June 1980 +% +Watch all-night Donna Reed reruns until your mind resembles oatmeal. +% +Watch your mouth, kid, or you'll find yourself floating home. + -- Han Solo +% +We don't like their sound. Groups of guitars are on the way out. + -- Decca Recording Company, turning down the Beatles, 1962 +% +We have art that we do not die of the truth. + -- Nietzsche +% +We'll be recording at the Paradise Friday night. Live, on the Death label. + -- Swan, "Phantom of the Paradise" +% +We'll know that rock is dead when you have to get a degree to work in it. +% +We're constantly being bombarded by insulting and humiliating music, which people are making for you the way they make those Wonder Bread products. Just as food can be bad for your system, music can be bad for your spirtual and emotional feelings. It might taste good or clever, but in the long run, it's not going to do anything for you. + -- Bob Dylan, "LA Times", September 5, 1984 +% +We're only in it for the volume. + -- Black Sabbath +% +"Well, if you can't believe what you read in a comic book, what *___can* +you believe?!" + -- Bullwinkle J. Moose [Jay Ward] +% + "Well, it's garish, ugly, and derelicts have used it for a toilet. The rides are dilapidated to the point of being lethal, and could easily maim or kill innocent little children." + "Oh, so you don't like it?" + "Don't like it? I'm CRAZY for it." + -- The Killing Joke +% +"Well, that was a piece of cake, eh K-9?" + +"Piece of cake, Master? Radial slice of baked confection ... coefficient of relevance to Key of Time: zero." + -- Dr. Who +% +Wharbat darbid yarbou sarbay? +% +What a bonanza! An unknown beginner to be directed by Lubitsch, in a script by Wilder and Brackett, and to play with Paramount's two superstars, Gary Cooper and Claudette Colbert, and to be beaten up by both of them! + -- David Niven, "Bring On the Empty Horses" +% +What an artist dies with me! + -- Nero +% +What an author likes to write most is his signature on the back of a cheque. + -- Brendan Francis +% + "What are you watching?" + "I don't know." + "Well, what's happening?" + "I'm not sure... I think the guy in the hat did something terrible." + "Why are you watching it?" + "You're so analytical. Sometimes you just have to let art flow over you." + -- The Big Chill +% +What did you bring that book I didn't want to be read to out of about Down Under up for? +% +"What do you do when your real life exceeds your wildest fantasies?" +"You keep it to yourself." + -- Broadcast News +% +What ever happened to happily ever after? +% +What garlic is to food, insanity is to art. +% +What no spouse of a writer can ever understand is that a writer is working when he's staring out the window. +% + "What was the worst thing you've ever done?" + "I won't tell you that, but I'll tell you the worst thing that ever happened to me... the most dreadful thing." + -- Peter Straub, "Ghost Story" +% +When all else fails, try Kate Smith. +% +When confronted by a difficult problem, you can solve it more easily by reducing it to the question, "How would the Lone Ranger handle this?" +% +When in doubt, have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand. + -- Raymond Chandler +% +When one woman was asked how long she had been going to symphony concerts, she paused to calculate and replied, "Forty-seven years -- and I find I mind +it less and less." + -- Louise Andrews Kent +% +Where is John Carson now that we need him? + -- RLG +% +While he was in New York on location for _Bronco Billy_ (1980), Clint Eastwood agreed to a television interview. His host, somewhat hostile, began by defining a Clint Eastwood picture as a violent, ruthless, lawless, and bloody piece of mayhem, and then asked Eastwood himself to define a Clint Eastwood picture. "To me," said Eastwood calmly, "what a Clint Eastwood picture is, is one that I'm in." + -- Boller and Davis, "Hollywood Anecdotes" +% +Whistler's mother is off her rocker. +% +Who is D.B. Cooper, and where is he now? +% +Who is John Galt? +% +Who is W.O. Baker, and why is he saying those terrible things about me? +% +Who was that masked man? +% +Who's on first? +% +Who's scruffy-looking? + -- Han Solo +% +Why am I so soft in the middle when the rest of my life is so hard? + -- Paul Simon +% +"Why are we importing all these highbrow plays like `Amadeus'? I could have told you Mozart was a jerk for nothing." + -- Ian Shoales +% + "Why are you doing this to me?" + "Because knowledge is torture, and there must be awareness before there is change." + -- Jim Starlin, "Captain Marvel", #29 +% +Why do we have two eyes? To watch 3-D movies with. +% +Why not? -- What? -- Why not? -- Why should I not send it? -- Why should I not dispatch it? -- Why not? -- Strange! I don't know why I shouldn't -- Well, then -- You will do me this favor. -- Why not? -- Why should you not do it? -- Why not? -- Strange! I shall do the same for you, when you want me to. Why not? Why should I not do it for you? Strange! Why not? -- I can't think why not. + -- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, from a letter to his cousin Maria, + "The Definitive Biography of PDQ Bach", Peter Schickele +% +Why you say you no bunny rabbit when you have little powder-puff tail? + -- The Tasmanian Devil +% +Working with Julie Andrews is like getting hit over the head with a valentine. + -- Christopher Plummer +% +Worth seeing? Yes, but not worth going to see. +% +Would it help if I got out and pushed? + -- Princess Leia Organa +% +Writing about music is like dancing about architecture. + -- Frank Zappa +% +Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down. +% +X-rated movies are all alike ... the only thing they leave to the imagination is the plot. +% +Yeah, that's me, Tracer Bullet. I've got eight slugs in me. One's lead, the rest bourbon. The drink packs a wallop, and I pack a revolver. I'm a private eye. + -- "Calvin & Hobbes" +% +Year Name James Bond Book +---- -------------------------------- -------------- ---- +50's James Bond TV Series Barry Nelson +1962 Dr. No Sean Connery 1958 +1963 From Russia With Love Sean Connery 1957 +1964 Goldfinger Sean Connery 1959 +1965 Thunderball Sean Connery 1961 +1967* Casino Royale David Niven 1954 +1967 You Only Live Twice Sean Connery 1964 +1969 On Her Majesty's Secret Service George Lazenby 1963 +1971 Diamonds Are Forever Sean Connery 1956 +1973 Live And Let Die Roger Moore 1955 +1974 The Man With The Golden Gun Roger Moore 1965 +1977 The Spy Who Loved Me Roger Moore 1962 (novelette) +1979 Moonraker Roger Moore 1955 +1981 For Your Eyes Only Roger Moore 1960 (novelette) +1983 Octopussy Roger Moore 1965 +1983* Never Say Never Again Sean Connery +1985 A View To A Kill Roger Moore 1960 (novelette) +1987 The Living Daylights Timothy Dalton 1965 (novelette) + * -- Not a Broccoli production. +% +Yevtushenko has... an ego that can crack crystal at a distance of twenty feet. + -- John Cheever +% +"You boys lookin' for trouble?" +"Sure. Whaddya got?" + -- Marlon Brando, "The Wild Ones" +% +You're all clear now, kid. Now blow this thing so we can all go home. + -- Han Solo +% +"You've got to have a gimmick if your band sucks." + -- Gary Giddens +% +Zero Mostel: That's it baby! When you got it, flaunt it! Flaunt it! + -- Mel Brooks, "The Producers" +% diff --git a/data/etc/fortunes/Computers b/data/etc/fortunes/Computers new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..a2aa12e8af --- /dev/null +++ b/data/etc/fortunes/Computers @@ -0,0 +1,3074 @@ +!07/11 PDP a ni deppart m'I !pleH +% +101 USES FOR A DEAD MICROPROCESSOR + (1) Scarecrow for centipedes + (2) Dead cat brush + (3) Hair barrettes + (4) Cleats + (5) Self-piercing earrings + (6) Fungus trellis + (7) False eyelashes + (8) Prosthetic dog claws + . + . + . + (99) Window garden harrow (pulled behind Tonka tractors) + (100) Killer velcro + (101) Currency +% +1: No code table for op: ++post +% +4.2 BSD UNIX #57: Sun Jun 1 23:02:07 EDT 1986 + +You swing at the Sun. You miss. The Sun swings. He hits you with a 575MB disk! You read the 575MB disk. It is written in an alien tongue and cannot be read by your tired Sun-2 eyes. You throw the 575MB disk at the Sun. You hit! The Sun must repair your eyes. The Sun reads a scroll. He hits your 130MB disk! He has defeated the +130MB disk! The Sun reads a scroll. He hits your Ethernet board! He has defeated your Ethernet board! You read a scroll of "postpone until Monday at 9 AM". Everything goes dark... + -- /etc/motd, cbosgd +% +A biologist, a statistician, a mathematician and a computer scientist are on a photo-safari in Africa. As they're driving along the savannah in their jeep, they stop and scout the horizon with their binoculars. + +The biologist: "Look! A herd of zebras! And there's a white zebra! Fantastic! We'll be famous!" +The statistician: "Hey, calm down, it's not significant. We only know there's one white zebra." +The mathematician: "Actually, we only know there exists a zebra, which is white on one side." +The computer scientist : "Oh, no! A special case!" +% +... A booming voice says, "Wrong, cretin!", and you notice that you have turned into a pile of dust. +% +A bug in the code is worth two in the documentation. +% +A bug in the hand is better than one as yet undetected. +% +A certain monk had a habit of pestering the Grand Tortue (the only one who had ever reached the Enlightenment 'Yond Enlightenment), by asking whether various objects had Buddha-nature or not. To such a question Tortue invariably sat silent. The monk had already asked about a bean, a lake, and a moonlit night. One day he brought to Tortue a piece of string, and asked the same question. In reply, the Grand Tortue grasped the loop between his feet and, with a few simple manipulations, created a complex string which he proferred wordlessly to the monk. At that moment, the monk was enlightened. + +From then on, the monk did not bother Tortue. Instead, he made string after string by Tortue's method; and he passed the method on to his own disciples, who passed it on to theirs. +% +A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that works. +% +[A computer is] like an Old Testament god, with a lot of rules and no mercy. + -- Joseph Campbell +% +A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any other invention, with the possible exceptions of handguns and Tequilla. + -- Mitch Ratcliffe +% +A computer salesman visits a company president for the purpose of selling the president one of the latest talking computers. + +Salesman: "This machine knows everything. I can ask it any quesstion + and it'll give the correct answer. Computer, what is the + speed of light?" +Computer: 186,282 miles per second. +Salesman: "Who was the first president of the United States?" +Computer: George Washington. +President: "I'm still not convinced. Let me ask a question. Where is my father?" +Computer: Your father is fishing in Georgia. +President: "Hah!! The computer is wrong. My father died over twenty years ago!" +Computer: Your mother's husband died 22 years ago. Your father just landed a twelve pound bass. +% +A computer scientist is someone who fixes things that aren't broken. +% +A computer without COBOL and Fortran is like a piece of chocolate cake without ketchup and mustard. +% +A CONS is an object which cares. + -- Bernie Greenberg. +% +A debugged program is one for which you have not yet found the conditions that make it fail. + -- Jerry Ogdin +% + A disciple of another sect once came to Drescher as he was eating his morning meal. "I would like to give you this personality test", said the outsider, "because I want you to be happy." + Drescher took the paper that was offered him and put it into the toaster -- "I wish the toaster to be happy too". +% + A doctor, an architect, and a computer scientist were arguing about whose profession was the oldest. In the course of their arguments, they got all the way back to the Garden of Eden, whereupon the doctor said, "The +medical profession is clearly the oldest, because Eve was made from Adam's rib, as the story goes, and that was a simply incredible surgical feat." + The architect did not agree. He said, "But if you look at the Garden itself, in the beginning there was chaos and void, and out of that the Garden and the world were created. So God must have been an architect." + The computer scientist, who'd listened carefully to all of this, then commented, "Yes, but where do you think the chaos came from?" +% +A famous Lisp Hacker noticed an Undergraduate sitting in front of a Xerox 1108, trying to edit a complex Klone network via a browser. Wanting to help, the Hacker clicked one of the nodes in the network with the mouse, and asked "what do you see?" Very earnestly, the Undergraduate replied "I see a cursor." The Hacker then quickly pressed the boot toggle at the back of the keyboard, while simultaneously hitting the Undergraduate over the head with a thick Interlisp Manual. The Undergraduate was then Enlightened. +% +A formal parsing algorithm should not always be used. + -- D. Gries +% +A Fortran compiler is the hobgoblin of little minis. +% +A hacker does for love what others would not do for money. +% +A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing. +% +A language that doesn't have everything is actually easier to program in than some that do. + -- Dennis M. Ritchie +% +A large number of installed systems work by fiat. That is, they work +by being declared to work. + -- Anatol Holt +% +A LISP programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of nothing. + -- Alan Perlis +% +A list is only as strong as its weakest link. + -- Don Knuth +% +A little retrospection shows that although many fine, useful software systems have been designed by committees and built as part of multipart projects, those software systems that have excited passionate fans are those that are the products of one or a few designing minds, great designers. Consider Unix, APL, Pascal, Modula, the Smalltalk interface, even Fortran; and contrast them with Cobol, PL/I, Algol, MVS/370, and MS-DOS. + -- Fred Brooks +% + A man from AI walked across the mountains to SAIL to see the Master, Knuth. When he arrived, the Master was nowhere to be found. "Where is the wise one named Knuth?" he asked a passing student. + "Ah," said the student, "you have not heard. He has gone on a pilgrimage across the mountains to the temple of AI to seek out new disciples." + Hearing this, the man was Enlightened. +% + A manager asked a programmer how long it would take him to finish the program on which he was working. "I will be finished tomorrow," the programmer promptly replied. + "I think you are being unrealistic," said the manager. "Truthfully, how long will it take?" + The programmer thought for a moment. "I have some features that I wish to add. This will take at least two weeks," he finally said. + "Even that is too much to expect," insisted the manager, "I will be satisfied if you simply tell me when the program is complete." + The programmer agreed to this. + Several years later, the manager retired. On the way to his retirement lunch, he discovered the programmer asleep at his terminal. He had been programming all night. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + A manager was about to be fired, but a programmer who worked for him invented a new program that became popular and sold well. As a result, the manager retained his job. + The manager tried to give the programmer a bonus, but the programmer refused it, saying, "I wrote the program because I though it was an interesting concept, and thus I expect no reward." + The manager, upon hearing this, remarked, "This programmer, though he holds a position of small esteem, understands well the proper duty of an employee. Lets promote him to the exalted position of management consultant!" + But when told this, the programmer once more refused, saying, "I exist so that I can program. If I were promoted, I would do nothing but waste everyone's time. Can I go now? I have a program that I'm working on." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + A manager went to his programmers and told them: "As regards to your work hours: you are going to have to come in at nine in the morning and leave at five in the afternoon." At this, all of them became angry and several +resigned on the spot. + So the manager said: "All right, in that case you may set your own working hours, as long as you finish your projects on schedule." The programmers, now satisfied, began to come in a noon and work to the wee +hours of the morning. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + A manager went to the master programmer and showed him the requirements document for a new application. The manager asked the master: "How long will it take to design this system if I assign five programmers to it?" + "It will take one year," said the master promptly. + "But we need this system immediately or even sooner! How long will it take it I assign ten programmers to it?" + The master programmer frowned. "In that case, it will take two years." + "And what if I assign a hundred programmers to it?" + The master programmer shrugged. "Then the design will never be completed," he said. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + A master programmer passed a novice programmer one day. The master noted the novice's preoccupation with a hand-held computer game. "Excuse me", he said, "may I examine it?" + The novice bolted to attention and handed the device to the master. "I see that the device claims to have three levels of play: Easy, Medium, and Hard", said the master. "Yet every such device has another level of play, +where the device seeks not to conquer the human, nor to be conquered by the human." + "Pray, great master," implored the novice, "how does one find this mysterious setting?" + The master dropped the device to the ground and crushed it under foot. And suddenly the novice was enlightened. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + A master was explaining the nature of Tao to one of his novices. "The Tao is embodied in all software -- regardless of how insignificant," said the master. + "Is Tao in a hand-held calculator?" asked the novice. + "It is," came the reply. + "Is the Tao in a video game?" continued the novice. + "It is even in a video game," said the master. + "And is the Tao in the DOS for a personal computer?" + The master coughed and shifted his position slightly. "The lesson is over for today," he said. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +A modem is a baudy house. +% +A nasty looking dwarf throws a knife at you. +% + *** A NEW KIND OF PROGRAMMING *** + +Do you want the instant respect that comes from being able to use technical terms that nobody understands? Do you want to strike fear and loathing into the hearts of DP managers everywhere? If so, then let the Famous Programmers' School lead you on... into the world of professional computer programming. They say a good programmer can write 20 lines of effective program per day. With our unique training course, we'll show you how to write 20 lines of code and lots more besides. Our training course covers every programming language in existence, and some that aren't. You'll learn why the on/off switch for a computer is so important, what the words *fatal error* mean, and who and what you should blame when you make a mistake. + + Yes, I want the brochure describing this incredible offer. + I enclose $1000 is small unmarked bills to cover the cost of postage and handling. (No live poultry, please.) + +*** Our Slogan: Top down programming for the masses. *** +% + A novice asked the Master: "Here is a programmer that never designs, documents, or tests his programs. Yet all who know him consider him one of the best programmers in the world. Why is this?" + The Master replies: "That programmer has mastered the Tao. He has gone beyond the need for design; he does not become angry when the system crashes, but accepts the universe without concern. He has gone beyond the need for documentation; he no longer cares if anyone else sees his code. He has gone beyond the need for testing; each of his programs are perfect within themselves, serene and elegant, their purpose self-evident. Truly, he has entered the mystery of the Tao." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + A novice asked the master: "I have a program that sometimes runs and sometimes aborts. I have followed the rules of programming, yet I am totally baffled. What is the reason for this?" + The master replied: "You are confused because you do not understand the Tao. Only a fool expects rational behavior from his fellow humans. Why do you expect it from a machine that humans have constructed? Computers simulate determinism; only the Tao is perfect. + The rules of programming are transitory; only the Tao is eternal. Therefore you must contemplate the Tao before you receive enlightenment." + "But how will I know when I have received enlightenment?" asked the novice. + "Your program will then run correctly," replied the master. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + A novice asked the master: "I perceive that one computer company is much larger than all others. It towers above its competition like a giant among dwarfs. Any one of its divisions could comprise an entire business. Why is this so?" + The master replied, "Why do you ask such foolish questions? That company is large because it is so large. If it only made hardware, nobody would buy it. If it only maintained systems, people would treat it like a servant. But because it combines all of these things, people think it one of the gods! By not seeking to strive, it conquers without effort." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + A novice asked the master: "In the east there is a great tree-structure that men call 'Corporate Headquarters'. It is bloated out of shape with vice-presidents and accountants. It issues a multitude of memos, each saying 'Go, Hence!' or 'Go, Hither!' and nobody knows what is meant. Every year new names are put onto the branches, but all to no avail. How can such an +unnatural entity exist?" + The master replies: "You perceive this immense structure and are disturbed that it has no rational purpose. Can you not take amusement from its endless gyrations? Do you not enjoy the untroubled ease of programming beneath its sheltering branches? Why are you bothered by its uselessness?" + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + A novice programmer was once assigned to code a simple financial package. + The novice worked furiously for many days, but when his master reviewed his program, he discovered that it contained a screen editor, a set of generalized graphics routines, and artificial intelligence interface, but not the slightest mention of anything financial. + When the master asked about this, the novice became indignant. +"Don't be so impatient," he said, "I'll put the financial stuff in eventually." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + A novice was trying to fix a broken lisp machine by turning the power off and on. Knight, seeing what the student was doing spoke sternly, "You cannot fix a machine by just power-cycling it with no understanding of what is going wrong." Knight turned the machine off and on. The machine worked. +% +A person who is more than casually interested in computers should be well-schooled in machine language, since it is a fundamental part of a computer. + -- Donald Knuth +% + A program should be light and agile, its subroutines connected like a strings of pearls. The spirit and intent of the program should be retained throughout. There should be neither too little nor too much, neither needless loops nor useless variables, neither lack of structure nor overwhelming rigidity. + A program should follow the 'Law of Least Astonishment'. What is this law? It is simply that the program should always respond to the user in the way that astonishes him least. + A program, no matter how complex, should act as a single unit. The program should be directed by the logic within rather than by outward appearances. + If the program fails in these requirements, it will be in a state of disorder and confusion. The only way to correct this is to rewrite the program. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + A programmer from a very large computer company went to a software conference and then returned to report to his manager, saying: "What sort of programmers work for other companies? They behaved badly and were unconcerned with appearances. Their hair was long and unkempt and their clothes were wrinkled and old. They crashed out hospitality suites and they made rude noises during my presentation." + The manager said: "I should have never sent you to the conference. Those programmers live beyond the physical world. They consider life absurd, an accidental coincidence. They come and go without knowing limitations. Without a care, they live only for their programs. Why should they bother with social conventions?" + "They are alive within the Tao." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +A programmer is a person who passes as an exacting expert on the basis of being able to turn out, after innumerable punching, an infinite series of incomprehensible answers calculated with micrometric precisions from vague assumptions based on debatable figures taken from inconclusive documents and carried out on instruments of problematical accuracy by persons of +dubious reliability and questionable mentality for the avowed purpose of annoying and confounding a hopelessly defenseless department that was unfortunate enough to ask for the information in the first place. + -- IEEE Grid newsmagazine +% +A programming language is low-level when its programs require attention to the irrelevant. +% +A recent study has found that concentrating on difficult off-screen objects, such as the faces of loved ones, causes eye strain in computer scientists. Researchers into the phenomenon cite the added concentration needed to "make sense" of such unnatural three dimensional objects. +% +A rolling disk gathers no MOS. +% + A sheet of paper crossed my desk the other day and as I read it, realization of a basic truth came over me. So simple! So obvious we couldn't see it. John Knivlen, Chairman of Polamar Repeater Club, an amateur radio group, had discovered how IC circuits work. He says that smoke is the thing that makes ICs work because every time you let the smoke out of an IC circuit, +it stops working. He claims to have verified this with thorough testing. + I was flabbergasted! Of course! Smoke makes all things electrical work. Remember the last time smoke escaped from your Lucas voltage regulator? Didn't it quit working? I sat and smiled like an idiot as more of the truth dawned. It's the wiring harness that carries the smoke from one device to another in your Mini, MG or Jag. And when the harness springs a leak, it lets +the smoke out of everything at once, and then nothing works. The starter motor requires large quantities of smoke to operate properly, and that's why the wire going to it is so large. + Feeling very smug, I continued to expand my hypothesis. Why are Lucas electronics more likely to leak than say Bosch? Hmmm... Aha!!! Lucas is British, and all things British leak! British convertible tops leak water, British engines leak oil, British displacer units leak hydrostatic fluid, and I might add Brititsh tires leak air, and the British defense unit leaks secrets... so naturally British electronics leak smoke. + -- Jack Banton, PCC Automotive Electrical School + + [Ummm ... IC circuits? Integrated circuit circuits?] +% +A student, in hopes of understanding the Lambda-nature, came to Greenblatt. As they spoke a Multics system hacker walked by. "Is it true", asked the student, "that PL-1 has many of the same data types as Lisp?" Almost before the student had finished his question, Greenblatt shouted, "FOO!", and hit the student with a stick. +% +A successful [software] tool is one that was used to do something undreamed of by its author. + -- S. C. Johnson +% +A well-used door needs no oil on its hinges. +A swift-flowing steam does not grow stagnant. +Neither sound nor thoughts can travel through a vacuum. +Software rots if not used. + +These are great mysteries. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God. +% +About the use of language: it is impossible to sharpen a pencil with a blunt ax. It is equally vain to try to do it with ten blunt axes instead. + -- Edsger Dijkstra +% +Adding features does not necessarily increase functionality -- it just makes the manuals thicker. +% +Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later. + -- F. Brooks, "The Mythical Man-Month" + +Whenever one person is found adequate to the discharge of a duty by close application thereto, it is worse execute by two persons and scarcely done at all if three or more are employed therein. + -- George Washington, 1732-1799 +% + After sifting through the overwritten remaining blocks of Luke's home directory, Luke and PDP-1 sped away from /u/lars, across the surface of the Winchester riding Luke's flying read/write head. PDP-1 had Luke stop at the edge of the cylinder overlooking /usr/spool/uucp. + "Unix-to-Unix Copy Program;" said PDP-1. "You will never find a more wretched hive of bugs and flamers. We must be cautious." + -- DECWARS +% +Alan Turing thought about criteria to settle the question of whether machines can think, a question of which we now know that it is about as relevant as the question of whether submarines can swim. + -- Dijkstra +% +Algol-60 surely must be regarded as the most important programming language yet developed. + -- T. Cheatham +% +All constants are variables. +% +=== ALL CSH USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== + +Set the variable $LOSERS to all the people that you think are losers. This will cause all said losers to have the variable $PEOPLE-WHO-THINK-I-AM-A-LOSER updated in their .login file. Should you attempt to execute a job on a machine with poor response time and a machine on your local net is currently populated by losers, that machine will be freed up for your job through a cold boot process. +% +All parts should go together without forcing. You must remember that the parts you are reassembling were disassembled by you. Therefore, if you can't get them together again, there must be a reason. By all means, do not use a hammer. + -- IBM maintenance manual, 1925 +% +All programmers are optimists. Perhaps this modern sorcery especially attracts those who believe in happy endings and fairy godmothers. Perhaps the hundreds of nitty frustrations drive away all but those who habitually focus on the end goal. Perhaps it is merely that computers are young, programmers are younger, and the young are always optimists. But however the selection process works, the result is indisputable: "This time it will surely run," or "I just found the last bug." + -- Frederick Brooks, "The Mythical Man Month" +% +All programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors. +% +"... all the good computer designs are bootlegged; the formally planned products, if they are built at all, are dogs!" + -- David E. Lundstrom, "A Few Good Men From Univac", + MIT Press, 1987 +% +All the simple programs have been written. +% +=== ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== + +A new system, the CIRCULATORY system, has been added. + +The long-experimental CIRCULATORY system has been released to users. The Lisp Machine uses Type B fluid, the L machine uses Type A fluid. When the switch to Common Lisp occurs both machines will, of course, be Type O. Please check fluid level by using the DIP stick which is located in the back of VMI monitors. Unchecked low fluid levels can cause poor paging performance. +% +=== ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== + +Bug reports now amount to an average of 12,853 per day. Unfortunately, this is only a small fraction [ < 1% ] of the mail volume we receive. In order that we may more expeditiously deal with these valuable messages, please communicate them by one of the following paths: + + ARPA: WastebasketSLMHQ.ARPA + UUCP: [berkeley, seismo, harpo]!fubar!thekid!slmhq!wastebasket + Non-network sites: Federal Express to: + Wastebasket + Room NE43-926 + Copernicus, The Moon, 12345-6789 + For that personal contact feeling call 1-415-642-4948; our trained + operators are on call 24 hours a day. VISA/MC accepted.* + +* Our very rich lawyers have assured us that we are not responsible for any errors or advice given over the phone. +% +=== ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== + +CAR and CDR now return extra values. + +The function CAR now returns two values. Since it has to go to the trouble to figure out if the object is carcdr-able anyway, we figured you might as well get both halves at once. For example, the following code shows how to destructure a cons (SOME-CONS) into its two slots (THE-CAR and THE-CDR): + + (MULTIPLE-VALUE-BIND (THE-CAR THE-CDR) (CAR SOME-CONS) ...) + +For symmetry with CAR, CDR returns a second value which is the CAR of the object. In a related change, the functions MAKE-ARRAY and CONS have been fixed so they don't allocate any storage except on the stack. This should hopefully help people who don't like using the garbage collector because it cold boots the machine so often. +% +=== ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== + +Compiler optimizations have been made to macro expand LET into a WITHOUT-INTERRUPTS special form so that it can PUSH things into a stack in the LET-OPTIMIZATION area, SETQ the variables and then POP them back when it's done. Don't worry about this unless you use multiprocessing. Note that LET *could* have been defined by: + + (LET ((LET '`(LET ((LET ',LET)) + ,LET))) + `(LET ((LET ',LET)) + ,LET)) + +This is believed to speed up execution by as much as a factor of 1.01 or 3.50 depending on whether you believe our friendly marketing representatives. This code was written by a new programmer here (we snatched him away from Itty Bitti Machines where we was writting COUGHBOL code) so to give him confidence we trusted his vows of "it works pretty well" and installed it. +% +=== ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== + +JCL support as alternative to system menu. + +In our continuing effort to support languages other than LISP on the CADDR, we have developed an OS/360-compatible JCL. This can be used as an alternative to the standard system menu. Type System J to get to a JCL interactive read-execute-diagnose loop window. [Note that for 360 compatibility, all input lines are truncated to 80 characters.] This window also maintains a mouse-sensitive display of critical job parameters such as dataset allocation, core allocation, channels, etc. When a JCL syntax error is detected or your job ABENDs, the window-oriented JCL debugger is entered. The JCL debugger displays appropriate OS/360 error messages (such as IEC703, "disk error") and allows you to dequeue your job. +% +=== ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== + +The garbage collector now works. In addition a new, experimental garbage collection algorithm has been installed. With SI:%DSK-GC-QLX-BITS set to 17, (NOT the default) the old garbage collection algorithm remains in force; when virtual storage is filled, the machine cold boots itself. With SI:%DSK-GC-QLX-BITS set to 23, the new garbage collector is enabled. Unlike most garbage collectors, the new gc starts its mark phase from the mind of the user, rather than from the obarray. This allows the garbage collection of significantly more Qs. As the garbage collector runs, it may ask you something like "Do you remember what SI:RDTBL-TRANS does?", and if you can't give a reasonable answer in thirty seconds, the symbol becomes a candidate for GCing. The variable SI:%GC-QLX-LUSER-TM governs how long the GC waits before timing out the user. +% +=== ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== + +There has been some confusion concerning MAPCAR. + (DEFUN MAPCAR (&FUNCTIONAL FCN &EVAL &REST LISTS) + (PROG (V P LP) + (SETQ P (LOCF V)) + L (SETQ LP LISTS) + (%START-FUNCTION-CALL FCN T (LENGTH LISTS) NIL) + L1 (OR LP (GO L2)) + (AND (NULL (CAR LP)) (RETURN V)) + (%PUSH (CAAR LP)) + (RPLACA LP (CDAR LP)) + (SETQ LP (CDR LP)) + (GO L1) + L2 (%FINISH-FUNCTION-CALL FCN T (LENGTH LISTS) NIL) + (SETQ LP (%POP)) + (RPLACD P (SETQ P (NCONS LP))) + (GO L))) +We hope this clears up the many questions we've had about it. +% +All your files have been destroyed (sorry). Paul. +% +Almost anything derogatory you could say about today's software design would be accurate. + -- K.E. Iverson +% +Although it is still a truism in industry that "no one was ever fired for buying IBM," Bill O'Neil, the chief technology officer at Drexel Burnham Lambert, says he knows for a fact that someone has been fired for just that reason. He knows it because he fired the guy. + "He made a bad decision, and what it came down to was, 'Well, I bought it because I figured it was safe to buy IBM,'" Mr. O'Neil says. +"I said, 'No. Wrong. Game over. Next contestant, please.'" + -- The Wall Street Journal, December 6, 1989 +% +AmigaDOS Beer: The company has gone out of business, but their recipe has been picked up by some weird German company, so now this beer will be an import. This beer never really sold very well because the original manufacturer didn't understand marketing. Like Unix Beer, AmigaDOS Beer fans are an extremely loyal and loud group. It originally came in a 16-oz. can, but now comes in 32-oz. cans too. When this can was originally introduced, it appeared flashy and colorful, but the design hasn't changed much over the years, so it appears dated now. Critics of this beer claim that it is only meant for watching TV anyway. +% +An Ada exception is when a routine gets in trouble and says 'Beam me up, Scotty'. +% +An adequate bootstrap is a contradiction in terms. +% +An algorithm must be seen to be believed. + -- D.E. Knuth +% +... an anecdote from IBM's Yorktown Heights Research Center. When a programmer used his new computer terminal, all was fine when he was sitting down, but he couldn't log in to the system when he was standing up. That behavior was 100 percent repeatable: he could always log in when sitting and never when standing. + +Most of us just sit back and marvel at such a story; how could that terminal know whether the poor guy was sitting or standing? Good debuggers, though, know that there has to be a reason. Electrical theories are the easiest to hypothesize: was there a loose with under the carpet, or problems with static electricity? But electrical problems are rarely consistently reproducible. An alert IBMer finally noticed that the problem was in the terminal's keyboard: the tops of two keys were switched. When the programmer was seated he was a touch typist and the problem went unnoticed, but when he stood he was led astray by hunting and pecking. + -- "Programming Pearls" column, by Jon Bentley in CACM February 1985 +% +An elephant is a mouse with an operating system. +% +An engineer is someone who does list processing in FORTRAN. +% +An interpretation satisfies a sentence in the table language if and only if +each entry in the table designates the value of the function designated by the +function constant in the upper-left corner applied to the objects designated +by the corresponding row and column labels. + -- Genesereth & Nilsson, "Logical foundations of Artificial Intelligence" +% +And it should be the law: If you use the word `paradigm' without knowing what the dictionary says it means, you go to jail. No exceptions. + -- David Jones +% +And on the seventh day, He exited from append mode. +% +Another megabytes the dust. +% +Any given program will expand to fill available memory. +% +Any given program, when running, is obsolete. +% +Any program which runs right is obsolete. +% +Any programming language is at its best before it is implemented and used. +% +... Any resemblance between the above views and those of my employer, my terminal, or the view out my window are purely coincidental. Any resemblance between the above and my own views is non-deterministic. The question of the existence of views in the absence of anyone to hold them is left as an exercise for the reader. The question of the existence of the reader is left as an exercise for the second god coefficient. (A discussion of non-orthogonal, non-integral polytheism is beyond the scope +of this article.) +% +Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature. + -- Rich Kulawiec +% +Anyone who has attended a USENIX conference in a fancy hotel can tell you that a sentence like "You're one of those computer people, aren't you?" is roughly equivalent to "Look, another amazingly mobile form of slime mold!" in the mouth of a hotel cocktail waitress. + -- Elizabeth Zwicky +% +APL hackers do it in the quad. +% +APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection. It is the language of the future for the programming techniques of the past: it creates a new generation of coding bums. + -- Edsger W. Dijkstra, SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 17, Number 5 +% +APL is a natural extension of assembler language programming; ...and is best for educational purposes. + -- A. Perlis +% +APL is a write-only language. I can write programs in APL, but I can't read any of them. + -- Roy Keir +% +Are we running light with overbyte? +% +Around computers it is difficult to find the correct unit of time to measure progress. Some cathedrals took a century to complete. Can you imagine the grandeur and scope of a program that would take as long? + -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982 +% +As a computer, I find your faith in technology amusing. +% +As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error. + -- Weisert +% +As in certain cults it is possible to kill a process if you know its true name. + -- Ken Thompson and Dennis M. Ritchie +% +As in Protestant Europe, by contrast, where sects divided endlessly into smaller competing sects and no church dominated any other, all is different in the fragmented world of IBM. That realm is now a chaos of conflicting norms and standards that not even IBM can hope to control. You can buy a computer that works like an IBM machine but contains nothing made or sold by IBM itself. Renegades from IBM constantly set up rival firms and establish standards of their own. When IBM recently abandoned some of its original standards and decreed new ones, many of its rivals declared a puritan allegiance to IBM's original faith, and denounced the company as a divisive innovator. Still, the IBM world is united by its distrust of icons and imagery. IBM's screens are designed for language, not pictures. Graven images may be tolerated by the luxurious cults, but the true IBM faith relies +on the austerity of the word. + -- Edward Mendelson, "The New Republic", February 22, 1988 +% +As long as there are ill-defined goals, bizarre bugs, and unrealistic schedules, there will be Real Programmers willing to jump in and Solve The Problem, saving the documentation for later. +% +As of next Thursday, UNIX will be flushed in favor of TOPS-10. Please update your programs. +% +As of next Tuesday, C will be flushed in favor of COBOL. Please update your programs. +% +As of next week, passwords will be entered in Morse code. +% +As part of an ongoing effort to keep you, the Fortune reader, abreast of the valuable information the daily crosses the USENET, Fortune presents: + +News articles that answer *your* questions, #1: + +Newsgroups: comp.sources.d +Subject: how do I run C code received from sources +Keywords: C sources +Distribution: na + +I do not know how to run the C programs that are posted in the sources newsgroup. I save the files, edit them to remove the +headers, and change the mode so that they are executable, but I cannot get them to run. (I have never written a C program before.) + +Must they be compiled? With what compiler? How do I do this? If I compile them, is an object code file generated or must I generate it explicitly with the > character? Is there something else that must be done? +% +As part of the conversion, computer specialists rewrote 1,500 programs; a process that traditionally requires some debugging. + -- USA Today, referring to the Internal Revenue Service + conversion to a new computer system. +% +As soon as we started programming, we found to our surprise that it wasn't as easy to get programs right as we had thought. Debugging had to be discovered. I can remember the exact instant when I realized that a large part of my life from then on was going to be spent in finding mistakes in my own programs. + -- Maurice Wilkes, designer of EDSAC, on programming, 1949 +% +As the system comes up, the component builders will from time to time appear, bearing hot new versions of their pieces -- faster, smaller, more complete, or putatively less buggy. The replacement of a working component by a new version requires the same systematic testing procedure that adding a new component does, although it should require less time, for more complete and efficient test cases will usually be available. + -- Frederick Brooks Jr., "The Mythical Man Month" +% +As the trials of life continue to take their toll, remember that there is always a future in Computer Maintenance. + -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata" +% +As Will Rogers would have said, "There is no such things as a free variable." +% +ASCII a stupid question, you get an EBCDIC answer. +% +ASHes to ASHes, DOS to DOS. +% +Ask not for whom the  tolls. +% +Assembly language experience is [important] for the maturity and understanding of how computers work that it provides. + -- D. Gries +% +Asynchronous inputs are at the root of our race problems. + -- D. Winker and F. Prosser +% +At about 2500 A.D., humankind discovers a computer problem that *must* be solved. The only difficulty is that the problem is NP complete and will +take thousands of years even with the latest optical biologic technology available. The best computer scientists sit down to think up some solution. +In great dismay, one of the C.S. people tells her husband about it. There is only one solution, he says. Remember physics 103, Modern Physics, general relativity and all. She replies, "What does that have to do with solving a computer problem?" + "Remember the twin paradox?" + After a few minutes, she says, "I could put the computer on a very fast machine and the computer would have just a few minutes to calculate but that is the exact opposite of what we want... Of course! Leave the computer here, and accelerate the earth!" + The problem was so important that they did exactly that. When the earth came back, they were presented with the answer: + + IEH032 Error in JOB Control Card. +% +At first sight, the idea of any rules or principles being superimposed on the creative mind seems more likely to hinder than to help, but this is quite untrue in practice. Disciplined thinking focuses inspiration rather than blinkers it. + -- G.L. Glegg, "The Design of Design" +% +At Group L, Stoffel oversees six first-rate programmers, a managerial challenge roughly comparable to herding cats. + -- The Washington Post Magazine, 9 June, 1985 +% +At the source of every error which is blamed on the computer you will find at least two human errors, including the error of blaming it on the computer. +% +Avoid strange women and temporary variables. +% +Basic is a high level languish. APL is a high level anguish. +% +BASIC is to computer programming as QWERTY is to typing. + -- Seymour Papert +% +Be careful when a loop exits to the same place from side and bottom. +% +Behind every great computer sits a skinny little geek. +% +Bell Labs Unix -- Reach out and grep someone. +% +Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it. + -- Donald Knuth +% +Beware of Programmers who carry screwdrivers. + -- Leonard Brandwein +% +Beware of the Turing Tar-pit in which everything is possible but nothing of interest is easy. +% +Beware the new TTY code! +% +Blinding speed can compensate for a lot of deficiencies. + -- David Nichols +% +BLISS is ignorance. +% +Both models are identical in performance, functional operation, and interface circuit details. The two models, however, are not compatible on the same communications line connection. + -- Bell System Technical Reference +% +Brace yourselves. We're about to try something that borders on the unique: an actually rather serious technical book which is not only (gasp) vehemently anti-Solemn, but also (shudder) takes sides. I tend to think of it as `Constructive Snottiness.' + -- Mike Padlipsky, "Elements of Networking Style" +% +Brain fried -- Core dumped +% +Breadth-first search is the bulldozer of science. + -- Randy Goebel +% + Brian Kernighan has an automobile which he helped design. Unlike most automobiles, it has neither speedometer, nor gas gauge, nor any of the numerous idiot lights which plague the modern driver. Rather, if the driver makes any mistake, a giant "?" lights up in the center of the dashboard. "The experienced driver", he says, "will usually know what's wrong." +% +Bringing computers into the home won't change either one, but may revitalize the corner saloon. +% +Build a system that even a fool can use and only a fool will want to use it. +% +Building translators is good clean fun. + -- T. Cheatham +% +Bus error -- driver executed. +% +Bus error -- please leave by the rear door. +% +But in our enthusiasm, we could not resist a radical overhaul of the system, in which all of its major weaknesses have been exposed, analyzed, and replaced with new weaknesses. + -- Bruce Leverett, "Register Allocation in Optimizing Compilers" +% +But this has taken us far afield from interface, which is not a bad place to be, since I particularly want to move ahead to the kludge. Why do people have so much trouble understanding the kludge? What is a kludge, after all, but not enough K's, not enough ROM's, not enough RAM's, poor quality interface and too few bytes to go around? Have I explained yet about the bytes? +% +"But what we need to know is, do people want nasally-insertable computers?" +% +By long-standing tradition, I take this opportunity to savage other designers in the thin disguise of good, clean fun. + -- P.J. Plauger, "Computer Language", 1988, April + Fool's column. +% +BYTE editors are people who separate the wheat from the chaff, and then carefully print the chaff. +% +Byte your tongue. +% +C Code. +C Code Run. +Run, Code, RUN! + PLEASE!!!! +% +C for yourself. +% +C makes it easy for you to shoot yourself in the foot. C++ makes that harder, but when you do, it blows away your whole leg. + -- Bjarne Stroustrup +% +C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas l'Informatique. + -- Bosquet [on seeing the IBM 4341] +% +C++ is the best example of second-system effect since OS/360. +% +Calm down, it's *only* ones and zeroes. +% +Can't open /usr/fortunes. Lid stuck on cookie jar. +% +CChheecckk yyoouurr dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh.. +% +CCI Power 6/40: one board, a megabyte of cache, and an attitude... +% +Center meeting at 4pm in 2C-543. +% +Civilization, as we know it, will end sometime this evening. See SYSNOTE tomorrow for more information. +% +COBOL is for morons. + -- E.W. Dijkstra +% +Cobol programmers are down in the dumps. +% +Coding is easy; All you do is sit staring at a terminal until the drops of blood form on your forehead. +% +Comparing software engineering to classical engineering assumes that software has the ability to wear out. Software typically behaves, or it does not. It either works, or it does not. Software generally does not degrade, abrade, stretch, twist, or ablate. To treat it as a physical entity, therefore, is misapplication of our engineering skills. Classical engineering deals with the characteristics of hardware; software engineering should deal with the +characteristics of *software*, and not with hardware or management. + -- Dan Klein +% +COMPASS [for the CDC-6000 series] is the sort of assembler one expects from a corporation whose president codes in octal. + -- J.N. Gray +% +... computer hardware progress is so fast. No other technology since civilization began has seen six orders of magnitude in performance-price +gain in 30 years. + -- Fred Brooks +% +Computer programmers do it byte by byte. +% +Computer programmers never die, they just get lost in the processing. +% +Computer programs expand so as to fill the core available. +% +Computer Science is merely the post-Turing decline in formal systems theory. +% +Computer Science is the only discipline in which we view adding a new wing to a building as being maintenance + -- Jim Horning +% +Computers are not intelligent. They only think they are. +% +Computers are unreliable, but humans are even more unreliable. Any system which depends on human reliability is unreliable. + -- Gilb +% +Computers are useless. They can only give you answers. + -- Pablo Picasso +% +Computers can figure out all kinds of problems, except the things in the world that just don't add up. +% +Computers don't actually think. + You just think they think. + (We think.) +% +Computers will not be perfected until they can compute how much more than the estimate the job will cost. +% +Conceptual integrity in turn dictates that the design must proceed from one mind, or from a very small number of agreeing resonant minds. + -- Frederick Brooks Jr., "The Mythical Man Month" +% +Congratulations! You are the one-millionth user to log into our system. If there's anything special we can do for you, anything at all, don't hesitate to ask! +% + Cosmotronic Software Unlimited Inc. does not warrant that the functions contained in the program will meet your requirements or that the operation of the program will be uninterrupted or error-free. + However, Cosmotronic Software Unlimited Inc. warrants the diskette(s) on which the program is furnished to be of black color and square shape under normal use for a period of ninety (90) days from the date of purchase. + NOTE: IN NO EVENT WILL COSMOTRONIC SOFTWARE UNLIMITED OR ITS DISTRIBUTORS AND THEIR DEALERS BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ANY DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY LOST PROFIT, LOST SAVINGS, LOST PATIENCE OR OTHER INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES. + -- Horstmann Software Design, the "ChiWriter" user manual +% +Couldn't we jury-rig the cat to act as an audio switch, and have it yell at people to save their core images before logging them out? I'm sure the cattle prod would be effective in this regard. In any case, a traverse mounted iguana, while more perverted, gives better traction, not to mention being easier to stake. +% +Counting in binary is just like counting in decimal -- if you are all thumbs. + -- Glaser and Way +% +Counting in octal is just like counting in decimal--if you don't use your thumbs. + -- Tom Lehrer +% +[Crash programs] fail because they are based on the theory that, with nine women pregnant, you can get a baby a month. + -- Wernher von Braun +% +Creating computer software is always a demanding and painstaking process -- an exercise in logic, clear expression, and almost fanatical attention to detail. It requires intelligence, dedication, and an enormous amount of hard work. But, a certain amount of unpredictable and often unrepeatable inspiration is what usually makes the difference between adequacy and excellence. +% +Creating computer software is always a demanding and painstaking process -- an exercise in logic, clear expression, and almost fanatical attention to detail. It requires intelligence, dedication, and an enormous amount of hard work. But, a certain amount of unpredictable and often unrepeatable inspiration is what usually makes the difference between adequacy and excellence. +% +%DCL-MEM-BAD, bad memory +VMS-F-PDGERS, pudding between the ears +% +Dear Emily: + How can I choose what groups to post in? + -- Confused + +Dear Confused: + Pick as many as you can, so that you get the widest audience. After all, the net exists to give you an audience. Ignore those who suggest you +should only use groups where you think the article is highly appropriate. Pick all groups where anybody might even be slightly interested. Always make sure followups go to all the groups. In the rare event that you post a followup which contains something original, make sure you expand the list of groups. Never include a "Followup-to:" line in the header, since some people might miss part of the valuable discussion in the fringe groups. + -- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette +% +Dear Emily: + I collected replies to an article I wrote, and now it's time to summarize. What should I do? + -- Editor + +Dear Editor: + Simply concatenate all the articles together into a big file and post that. On USENET, this is known as a summary. It lets people read all the replies without annoying newsreaders getting in the way. Do the same when summarizing a vote. + -- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette +% +Dear Emily: + I recently read an article that said, "reply by mail, I'll summarize." What should I do? + -- Doubtful + +Dear Doubtful: + Post your response to the whole net. That request applies only to dumb people who don't have something interesting to say. Your postings are +much more worthwhile than other people's, so it would be a waste to reply by mail. + -- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette +% +Dear Emily: + I saw a long article that I wish to rebut carefully, what should I do? + -- Angry + +Dear Angry: + Include the entire text with your article, and include your comments between the lines. Be sure to post, and not mail, even though your article looks like a reply to the original. Everybody *loves* to read those long point-by-point debates, especially when they evolve into name-calling and lots of "Is too!" -- "Is not!" -- "Is too, twizot!" exchanges. + -- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette +% +Dear Emily: + I'm having a serious disagreement with somebody on the net. I tried complaints to his sysadmin, organizing mail campaigns, called for his removal from the net and phoning his employer to get him fired. Everybody laughed at me. What can I do? + -- A Concerned Citizen + +Dear Concerned: + Go to the daily papers. Most modern reporters are top-notch computer experts who will understand the net, and your problems, perfectly. They will print careful, reasoned stories without any errors at all, and surely represent the situation properly to the public. The public will also all +act wisely, as they are also fully cognizant of the subtle nature of net society. + Papers never sensationalize or distort, so be sure to point out things like racism and sexism wherever they might exist. Be sure as well that they +understand that all things on the net, particularly insults, are meant literally. Link what transpires on the net to the causes of the Holocaust, if possible. If regular papers won't take the story, go to a tabloid paper -- they are always interested in good stories. +% +Dear Emily: + I'm still confused as to what groups articles should be posted to. How about an example? + -- Still Confused + +Dear Still: + Ok. Let's say you want to report that Gretzky has been traded from the Oilers to the Kings. Now right away you might think rec.sport.hockey would be enough. WRONG. Many more people might be interested. This is a big trade! Since it's a NEWS article, it belongs in the news.* hierarchy +as well. If you are a news admin, or there is one on your machine, try news.admin. If not, use news.misc. + The Oilers are probably interested in geology, so try sci.physics. He is a big star, so post to sci.astro, and sci.space because they are also interested in stars. Next, his name is Polish sounding. So post to soc.culture.polish. But that group doesn't exist, so cross-post to news.groups suggesting it should be created. With this many groups of interest, your article will be quite bizarre, so post to talk.bizarre as well. (And post to comp.std.mumps, since they hardly get any articles there, and a "comp" group will propagate your article further.) + You may also find it is more fun to post the article once in each group. If you list all the newsgroups in the same article, some newsreaders will only show the the article to the reader once! Don't tolerate this. + -- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette +% +Dear Emily: + Today I posted an article and forgot to include my signature. What should I do? + -- Forgetful + +Dear Forgetful: + Rush to your terminal right away and post an article that says, "Oops, I forgot to post my signature with that last article. Here it is." + Since most people will have forgotten your earlier article, (particularly since it dared to be so boring as to not have a nice, juicy signature) this will remind them of it. Besides, people care much more about the signature anyway. + -- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette +% +Dear Ms. Postnews: + I couldn't get mail through to somebody on another site. What should I do? + -- Eager Beaver + +Dear Eager: + No problem, just post your message to a group that a lot of people read. Say, "This is for John Smith. I couldn't get mail through so I'm posting it. All others please ignore." + This way tens of thousands of people will spend a few seconds scanning over and ignoring your article, using up over 16 man-hours their collective time, but you will be saved the terrible trouble of checking through usenet maps or looking for alternate routes. Just think, if you couldn't distribute your message to 9000 other computers, you might actually have to (gasp) call directory assistance for 60 cents, or even phone the person. This can cost as much as a few DOLLARS (!) for a 5 minute call! + And certainly it's better to spend 10 to 20 dollars of other people's money distributing the message than for you to have to waste $9 on an overnight letter, or even 25 cents on a stamp! + Don't forget. The world will end if your message doesn't get through, so post it as many places as you can. + -- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette +% +Dear Sir, + I am firmly opposed to the spread of microchips either to the home or to the office, We have more than enough of them foisted upon us in public +places. They are a disgusting Americanism, and can only result in the farmers being forced to grow smaller potatoes, which in turn will cause massive unemployment in the already severely depressed agricultural industry. + Yours faithfully, + Capt. Quinton D'Arcy, J.P. + Sevenoaks + -- Letters To The Editor, The Times of London +% +Debug is human, de-fix divine. +% +DEC diagnostics would run on a dead whale. + -- Mel Ferentz +% +#define BITCOUNT(x) (((BX_(x)+(BX_(x)>>4)) & 0x0F0F0F0F) % 255) +#define BX_(x) ((x) - (((x)>>1)&0x77777777) \ + - (((x)>>2)&0x33333333) \ + - (((x)>>3)&0x11111111)) + + -- really weird C code to count the number of bits in a word +% +(defun NF (a c) + (cond ((null c) () ) + ((atom (car c)) + (append (list (eval (list 'getchar (list (car c) 'a) (cadr c)))) + (nf a (cddr c)))) + (t (append (list (implode (nf a (car c)))) (nf a (cdr c)))))) + +(defun AD (want-job challenging boston-area) + (cond + ((or (not (equal want-job 'yes)) + (not (equal boston-area 'yes)) + (lessp challenging 7)) () ) + (t (append (nf (get 'ad 'expr) + '((caaddr 1 caadr 2 car 1 car 1) + (car 5 cadadr 9 cadadr 8 cadadr 9 caadr 4 car 2 car 1) + (car 2 caadr 4))) + (list '851-5071x2661))))) +;;; We are an affirmative action employer. +% +Deliver yesterday, code today, think tomorrow. +% +Did you know that for the price of a 280-Z you can buy two Z-80's? + -- P.J. Plauger +% +Different all twisty a of in maze are you, passages little. +% +Digital circuits are made from analog parts. + -- Don Vonada +% +Disc space -- the final frontier! +% +DISCLAIMER: +Use of this advanced computing technology does not imply an endorsement of Western industrial civilization. +% +Disclaimer: "These opinions are my own, though for a small fee they be yours too." + -- Dave Haynie +% +Disk crisis, please clean up! +% +Disks travel in packs. +% +Disraeli was pretty close: actually, there are Lies, Damn lies, Statistics, Benchmarks, and Delivery dates. +% +Do not meddle in the affairs of troff, for it is subtle and quick to anger. +% +Do not simplify the design of a program if a way can be found to make it complex and wonderful. +% +Do not use the blue keys on this terminal. +% +Do you guys know what you're doing, or are you just hacking? +% + *** DO YOU HAVE A RESTLESS URGE TO PROGRAM? *** +Do you want the instant respect that comes from being able to use technical terms that nobody understands? Do you want to strike fear and loathing into the hearts of DP managers everywhere? If so, then let the Famous Programmers' School lead you on... into the world of professional computer programming. + + *** IS PROGRAMMING FOR YOU? *** +Programming is not for everyone. But, if you have the desire to learn, we can help you get started. All you need is the Famous Programmers' Course and enough money to keep those lessons coming month after month. + + *** TAKE OUR FREE APTITUDE TEST *** +To help determine if you are qualified to be a programmer, take a moment to try this simple test: + (1) Write down the numbers from zero to nine and the first six letters of the alphabet (Hint: 0123456789ABCDEF). + (2) Whose picture is on the back of a twenty-dollar bill? + (3) What is the state capital of Idaho? +If you managed to read all three questions without wondering why we asked them, you may have a future as a computer programmer. +% +Do you suffer painful elimination? + -- Don Knuth, "Structured Programming with Gotos" + +Do you suffer painful recrimination? + -- Nancy Boxer, "Structured Programming with Come-froms" + +Do you suffer painful illumination? + -- Isaac Newton, "Optics" + +Do you suffer painful hallucination? + -- Don Juan, cited by Carlos Casteneda +% +Documentation is the castor oil of programming. Managers know it must be good because the programmers hate it so much. +% +Does a good farmer neglect a crop he has planted? +Does a good teacher overlook even the most humble student? +Does a good father allow a single child to starve? +Does a good programmer refuse to maintain his code? + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +Don't compare floating point numbers solely for equality. +% +Don't get suckered in by the comments -- they can be terribly misleading. Debug only code. + -- Dave Storer +% +Don't hit the keys so hard, it hurts. +% +Don't sweat it -- it's only ones and zeros. + -- P. Skelly +% +DOS Air: +All the passengers go out onto the runway, grab hold of the plane, push it until it gets in the air, hop on, jump off when it hits the ground again. Then they grab the plane again, push it back into the air, hop on, et cetera. +% +DOS Beer: Requires you to use your own can opener, and requires you to read the directions carefully before opening the can. Originally only came in an 8-oz. can, but now comes in a 16-oz. can. However, the can is divided into 8 compartments of 2 oz. each, which have to be accessed separately. Soon to be discontinued, although a lot of people are going to keep drinking it after it's no longer available. +% +Due to lack of disk space, this fortune database has been discontinued. +% +During the next two hours, the system will be going up and down several +times, often with lin~po_~{po ~poz~ppo\~{ o n~po_~{o[po ~y oodsou>#w4k**n~po_~{ol;lkld;f;g;dd;po\~{o +% +E Pluribus Unix +% +Each new user of a new system uncovers a new class of bugs. + -- Kernighan +% +Each of these cults correspond to one of the two antagonists in the age of Reformation. In the realm of the Apple Macintosh, as in Catholic Europe, +worshipers peer devoutly into screens filled with "icons." All is sound and imagery and Appledom. Even words look like decorative filigrees in exotic +typefaces. The greatest icon of all, the inviolable Apple itself, stands in the dominate position at the upper-left corner of the screen. A central +corporate headquarters decrees the form of all rites and practices. Infalliable doctrine issues from one executive officer whose selection occurs +in a sealed boardroom. Should anyone in his curia question his powers, the offender is excommunicated into outer darkness. The expelled heretic founds a new company, mutters obscurely of the coming age and the next computer, then disappears into silence, taking his stockholders with him. The mother company forbids financial competition as sternly as it stifles ideological competition; if you want to use computer programs that conform to Apple's orthodoxy, you must buy a computer made and sold by Apple itself. + -- Edward Mendelson, "The New Republic", February 22, 1988 +% +/earth is 98% full ... please delete anyone you can. +% +Earth is a beta site. +% +/earth: file system full. +% +egrep -n '^[a-z].*\(' $ | sort -t':' +2.0 +% +Einstein argued that there must be simplified explanations of nature, because God is not capricious or arbitrary. No such faith comforts the software +engineer. + -- Fred Brooks +% +Equal bytes for women. +% +Error in operator: add coffee +% +Established technology tends to persist in the face of new technology. + -- G. Blaauw, one of the designers of System 360 +% +<<<<< EVACUATION ROUTE <<<<< +% +Even bytes get lonely for a little bit. +% +Ever wondered about the origins of the term "bugs" as applied to computer technology? U.S. Navy Capt. Grace Murray Hopper has firsthand explanation. The 74-year-old captain, who is still on active duty, was a pioneer in computer technology during World War II. At the C.W. Post Center of Long Island University, Hopper told a group of Long Island public school administrators that the first computer "bug" was a real bug--a moth. At Harvard one August night in 1945, Hopper and her associates were working on the "granddaddy" of modern computers, the Mark I. "Things were going badly; there was something wrong in one of the circuits of the long glass-enclosed computer," she said. "Finally, someone located the trouble spot and, using ordinary tweezers, removed the problem, a two-inch moth. From then on, when anything went wrong with a computer, we said it had bugs in it." Hopper said that when the veracity of her story was questioned recently, "I referred them to my 1945 log book, now in the collection of the Naval Surface Weapons Center, and they found the remains of that moth taped to the page in question." + [actually, the term "bug" had even earlier usage in regard to problems with radio hardware. Ed.] +% +"Every group has a couple of experts. And every group has at least one idiot. Thus are balance and harmony (and discord) maintained. It's sometimes hard to remember this in the bulk of the flamewars that all of the hassle and pain is generally caused by one or two highly-motivated, +caustic twits." + -- Chuq Von Rospach, about Usenet +% +Every program has at least one bug and can be shortened by at least one instruction -- from which, by induction, one can deduce that every program can be reduced to one instruction which doesn't work. +% +Every program is a part of some other program, and rarely fits. +% +Every Solidarity center had piles and piles of paper ... everyone was eating paper and a policeman was at the door. Now all you have to do is bend a disk. + -- A member of the outlawed Polish trade union, Solidarity, commenting on the benefits of using computers in support of their movement. +% +Everybody needs a little love sometime; stop hacking and fall in love! +% +Everyone can be taught to sculpt: Michelangelo would have had to be +taught how *not* to. So it is with the great programmers. +% +Evolution is a million line computer program falling into place by accident. +% +Excessive login or logout messages are a sure sign of senility. +% +FACILITY REJECTED 100044200000; +% +Fellow programmer, greetings! You are reading a letter which will bring you luck and good fortune. Just mail (or UUCP) ten copies of this letter to ten of your friends. Before you make the copies, send a chip or other bit of hardware, and 100 lines of 'C' code to the first person on the list given at the bottom of this letter. Then delete their name and add yours to the bottom of the list. + +Don't break the chain! Make the copy within 48 hours. Gerald R. of San Diego failed to send out his ten copies and woke the next morning to find his job description changed to "COBOL programmer." Fred A. of New York sent out his ten copies and within a month had enough hardware and software to build a Cray dedicated to playing Zork. Martha H. of Chicago laughed at this letter and broke the chain. Shortly thereafter, a fire broke out in her terminal and she now spends her days writing documentation for IBM PC's. + +Don't break the chain! Send out your ten copies today! For example, if \thinmskip = 3mu, this makes \thickmskip = 6mu. But if you also want to use \skip12 for horizontal glue, whether in math mode or not, the amount of skipping will be in points (e.g., 6pt). The rule is that glue in math mode varies with the size only when it is an \mskip; when moving between an mskip and ordinary skip, the conversion factor 1mu=1pt is always used. The meaning of '\mskip\skip12' and '\baselineskip=\the\thickmskip' should be clear. + -- Donald Knuth, TeX 82 -- Comparison with TeX80 +% +Fly Windows NT: +All the passengers carry their seats out onto the tarmac, placing the chairs in the outline of a plane. They all sit down, flap their arms and make jet swooshing sounds as if they are flying. +% +"For that matter, compare your pocket computer with the massive jobs of a thousand years ago. Why not, then, the last step of doing away with +computers altogether?" + -- Jehan Shuman +% +FORTH IF HONK THEN +% +FORTRAN is a good example of a language which is easier to parse using ad hoc techniques. + -- D. Gries + [What's good about it? Ed.] +% +FORTRAN is for pipe stress freaks and crystallography weenies. +% +FORTRAN is not a flower but a weed -- it is hardy, occasionally blooms, and grows in every computer. + -- A.J. Perlis +% +FORTRAN is the language of Powerful Computers. + -- Steven Feiner +% +FORTRAN rots the brain. + -- John McQuillin +% +FORTRAN, "the infantile disorder", by now nearly 20 years old, is hopelessly inadequate for whatever computer application you have in mind today: it is too clumsy, too risky, and too expensive to use. + -- Edsger W. Dijkstra, SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 17, Number 5 +% +[FORTRAN] will persist for some time -- probably for at least the next decade. + -- T. Cheatham +% +fortune: cannot execute. Out of cookies. +% +fortune: cpu time/usefulness ratio too high -- core dumped. +% +Frankly, Scarlett, I don't have a fix. + -- Rhett Buggler +% +[From the operation manual for the CI-300 Dot Matrix Line Printer, made in Japan]: + +The excellent output machine of MODEL CI-300 as extraordinary DOT MATRIX LINE PRINTER, built in two MICRO-PROCESSORs as well as EAROM, is featured by permitting wonderful co-existence such as; "high quality against low cost," "diversified functions with compact design," "flexibility in accessibleness and durability of approx. 2000,000,00 Dot/Head," "being sophisticated in mechanism but possibly agile operating under noises being extremely suppressed" etc. + +And as a matter of course, the final goal is just simply to help achieve "super shuttle diplomacy" between cool data, perhaps earned by HOST COMPUTER, and warm heart of human being. +% +From the Pro 350 Pocket Service Guide, p. 49, Step 5 of the instructions on removing an I/O board from the card cage, comes a new experience in sound: + +5. Turn the handle to the right 90 degrees. The pin-spreading sound is normal for this type of connector. +% +Function reject. +% +GIVE: Support the helpless victims of computer error. +% +Given its constituency, the only thing I expect to be "open" about [the Open Software Foundation] is its mouth. + -- John Gilmore +% +Go away! Stop bothering me with all your "compute this ... compute that"! I'm taking a VAX-NAP. + +logout +% +//GO.SYSIN DD *, DOODAH, DOODAH +% +God is real, unless declared integer. +% +God made machine language; all the rest is the work of man. +% +Good evening, gentlemen. I am a HAL 9000 computer. I became operational at the HAL plant in Urbana, Illinois, on January 11th, nineteen hundred +ninety-five. My supervisor was Mr. Langley, and he taught me to sing a song. If you would like, I could sing it for you. +% +Grand Master Turing once dreamed that he was a machine. When he awoke he exclaimed: "I don't know whether I am Turing dreaming that I am a machine, or a machine dreaming that I am Turing!" + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +grep me no patterns and I'll tell you no lines. +% +Hacker's Guide To Cooking: + +2 pkg. cream cheese (the mushy white stuff in silver wrappings that doesn't really come from Philadelphia after all; anyway, about 16 oz.) +1 tsp. vanilla extract (which is more alcohol than vanilla and pretty strong so this part you *GOTTA* measure) +1/4 cup sugar (but honey works fine too) +8 oz. Cool Whip (the fluffy stuff devoid of nutritional value that you can squirt all over your friends and lick off...) +"Blend all together until creamy with no lumps." This is where you get to join(1) all the raw data in a big buffer and then filter it through merge(1m) with the -thick option, I mean, it starts out ultra lumpy and icky-looking and you have to work hard to mix it. Try an electric beater if you have a cat(1) that can climb wall(1s) to lick it off the ceiling(3m). +"Pour into a graham cracker crust..." Aha, the BUGS section at last. You just happened to have a GCC sitting around under /etc/food, right? If not, don't panic(8), merely crumble a rand(3m) handful of innocent GCs into a suitable tempfile and mix in some melted butter. +"...and refrigerate for an hour." Leave the recipe's stdout in a fridge for 3.6E6 milliseconds while you work on cleaning up stderr, and by time out your cheesecake will be ready for stdin. +% +Hackers are just a migratory lifeform with a tropism for computers. +% +Hackers of the world, unite! +% +Hacking's just another word for nothing left to kludge. +% +/* Halley */ + + (Halley's comment.) +% +Happiness is a hard disk. +% +Happiness is twin floppies. +% + Hardware met Software on the road to Changtse. Software said: "You are the Yin and I am the Yang. If we travel together we will become famous and earn vast sums of money." And so the pair set forth together, thinking to conquer the world. + Presently, they met Firmware, who was dressed in tattered rags, and hobbled along propped on a thorny stick. Firmware said to them: "The Tao lies beyond Yin and Yang. It is silent and still as a pool of water. It does not seek fame, therefore nobody knows its presence. It does not seeks fortune, for it is complete within itself. It exists beyond space and time." Software and Hardware, ashamed, returned to their homes. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +"Has anyone had problems with the computer accounts?" +"Yes, I don't have one." +"Okay, you can send mail to one of the tutors ..." + -- E. D'Azevedo, Computer Science 372 +% +Has everyone noticed that all the letters of the word "database" are typed with the left hand? Now the layout of the QWERTYUIOP typewriter +keyboard was designed, among other things, to facilitate the even use of both hands. It follows, therefore, that writing about databases is not only unnatural, but a lot harder than it appears. +% +Have you reconsidered a computer career? +% +He's like a function -- he returns a value, in the form of his opinion. It's up to you to cast it into a void or not. + -- Phil Lapsley +% +HEAD CRASH!! FILES LOST!! +Details at 11. +% +Help me, I'm a prisoner in a Fortune cookie file! +% +Help stamp out Mickey-Mouse computer interfaces -- Menus are for Restaurants! +% +Help! I'm trapped in a Chinese computer factory! +% +Help! I'm trapped in a PDP 11/70! +% +HELP!!!! I'm being held prisoner in /usr/games/lib! +% +Heuristics are bug ridden by definition. If they didn't have bugs, then they'd be algorithms. +% +HOLY MACRO! +% +HOST SYSTEM NOT RESPONDING, PROBABLY DOWN. DO YOU WANT TO WAIT? (Y/N) +% +HOST SYSTEM RESPONDING, PROBABLY UP... +% +How can you work when the system's so crowded? +% +"How do I love thee? My accumulator overflows." +% +How many seconds are there in a year? If I tell you there are 3.155 x 10^7, you won't even try to remember it. On the other hand, who could forget that, to within half a percent, pi seconds is a nanocentury. + -- Tom Duff, Bell Labs +% +How much does it cost to entice a dope-smoking UNIX system guru to Dayton? + -- Brian Boyle, UNIX/WORLD's First Annual Salary Survey +% +How much net work could a network work, if a network could net work? +% +Hug me now, you mad, impetuous fool!! Oh wait... +I'm a computer, and you're a person. It would never work out. + +Never mind. +% +I *knew* I had some reason for not logging you off... If I could just remember what it was. +% +I am a computer. I am dumber than any human and smarter than any administrator. +% +I am NOMAD! +% +I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of the demigodic party. + -- Dennis Ritchie +% +I am professionally trained in computer science, which is to say (in all seriousness) that I am extremely poorly educated. + -- Joseph Weizenbaum, "Computer Power and Human Reason" +% +I am the wandering glitch -- catch me if you can. +% +I asked the engineer who designed the communication terminal's keyboards why these were not manufactured in a central facility, in view of the small number needed [1 per month] in his factory. He explained that this would be contrary to the political concept of local self-sufficiency. Therefore, each factory needing keyboards, no matter how few, manufactures them completely, even molding the keypads. + -- Isaac Auerbach, IEEE "Computer", Nov. 1979 +% +I bet the human brain is a kludge. + -- Marvin Minsky +% +I came, I saw, I deleted all your files. +% +I cannot conceive that anybody will require multiplications at the rate of 40,000 or even 4,000 per hour ... + -- F. H. Wales (1936) +% +I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them. + -- Isaac Asimov +% +I had the rare misfortune of being one of the first people to try and implement a PL/1 compiler. + -- T. Cheatham +% +I have a very small mind and must live with it. + -- E. Dijkstra +% +I have never seen anything fill up a vacuum so fast and still suck. + -- Rob Pike, on X. + +Steve Jobs said two years ago that X is brain-damaged and it will be gone in two years. He was half right. + -- Dennis Ritchie + +Dennis Ritchie is twice as bright as Steve Jobs, and only half wrong. + -- Jim Gettys +% +I have not yet begun to byte! +% +I have sacrificed time, health, and fortune, in the desire to complete these Calculating Engines. I have also declined several offers of great personal +advantage to myself. But, notwithstanding the sacrifice of these advantages for the purpose of maturing an engine of almost intellectual power, and +after expending from my own private fortune a larger sum than the government of England has spent on that machine, the execution of which it only +commenced, I have received neither an acknowledgement of my labors, not even the offer of those honors or rewards which are allowed to fall within the reach of men who devote themselves to purely scientific investigations... + If the work upon which I have bestowed so much time and thought were a mere triumph over mechanical difficulties, or simply curious, or if the +execution of such engines were of doubtful practicability or utility, some justification might be found for the course which has been taken; but I venture to assert that no mathematician who has a reputation to lose will ever publicly express an opinion that such a machine would be useless if made, and that no man distinguished as a civil engineer will venture to declare the construction of such machinery impracticable... + And at a period when the progress of physical science is obstructed by that exhausting intellectual and manual labor, indispensable for its +advancement, which it is the object of the Analytical Engine to relieve, I think the application of machinery in aid of the most complicated and abtruse +calculations can no longer be deemed unworthy of the attention of the country. In fact, there is no reason why mental as well as bodily labor should not be economized by the aid of machinery. + -- Charles Babbage, "The Life of a Philosopher" +% +I have travelled the length and breadth of this country, and have talked with the best people in business administration. I can assure you on the highest +authority that data processing is a fad and won't last out the year. + -- Editor in charge of business books at Prentice-Hall publishers, responding to Karl V. Karlstrom (a junior editor who had recommended a manuscript on the new science of data processing), c. 1957 +% +I haven't lost my mind -- it's backed up on tape somewhere. +% +I must have slipped a disk -- my pack hurts! +% +I think there's a world market for about five computers. + -- attr. Thomas J. Watson (Chairman of the Board, IBM), 1943 +% +I went on to test the program in every way I could devise. I strained it to expose its weaknesses. I ran it for high-mass stars and low-mass stars, for stars born exceedingly hot and those born relatively cold. I ran it assuming the superfluid currents beneath the crust to be absent -- not because I wanted to know the answer, but because I had developed an intuitive feel for the answer in this particular case. Finally I got a run in which the computer showed the pulsar's temperature to be less than absolute zero. I had found an error. I chased down the error and fixed it. Now I had improved the program to the point where it would not run at all. + -- George Greenstein, "Frozen Star: Of Pulsars, Black Holes and the Fate of Stars" +% +I went to my first computer conference at the New York Hilton about 20 years ago. When somebody there predicted the market for microprocessors would eventually be in the millions, someone else said, "Where are they all going to go? It's not like you need a computer in every doorknob!" + +Years later, I went back to the same hotel. I noticed the room keys had been replaced by electronic cards you slide into slots in the doors. + +There was a computer in every doorknob. + -- Danny Hillis +% +I wish you humans would leave me alone. +% +I'm a Lisp variable -- bind me! +% +I'm all for computer dating, but I wouldn't want one to marry my sister. +% +I'm not even going to *bother* comparing C to BASIC or FORTRAN. + -- L. Zolman, creator of BDS C +% +I'm still waiting for the advent of the computer science groupie. +% +I've finally learned what "upward compatible" means. It means we get to keep all our old mistakes. + -- Dennie van Tassel +% +I've looked at the listing, and it's right! + -- Joel Halpern +% +I've never been canoeing before, but I imagine there must be just a few simple heuristics you have to remember... + +Yes, don't fall out, and don't hit rocks. +% +I've noticed several design suggestions in your code. +% +IBM Advanced Systems Group -- a bunch of mindless jerks, who'll be first against the wall when the revolution comes... + -- with regrets to D. Adams +% +If a 6600 used paper tape instead of core memory, it would use up tape at about 30 miles/second. + -- Grishman, Assembly Language Programming +% +If a group of N persons implements a COBOL compiler, there will be N-1 passes. Someone in the group has to be the manager. + -- T. Cheatham +% +If a listener nods his head when you're explaining your program, wake him up. +% +If a train station is a place where a train stops, what's a workstation? +% +If addiction is judged by how long a dumb animal will sit pressing a lever to get a "fix" of something, to its own detriment, then I would conclude that netnews is far more addictive than cocaine. + -- Rob Stampfli +% +If at first you don't succeed, you must be a programmer. +% +If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker to come along would destroy civilization. +% +If computers take over (which seems to be their natural tendency), it will serve us right. + -- Alistair Cooke +% +If God had a beard, he'd be a UNIX programmer. +% +If God had intended Man to program, we'd be born with serial I/O ports. +% +If graphics hackers are so smart, why can't they get the bugs out of fresh paint? +% +If he once again pushes up his sleeves in order to compute for 3 days and 3 nights in a row, he will spend a quarter of an hour before to think which principles of computation shall be most appropriate. + -- Voltaire, "Diatribe du docteur Akakia" +% +If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulders of giants. + -- Isaac Newton + +In the sciences, we are now uniquely priviledged to sit side by side with the giants on whose shoulders we stand. + -- Gerald Holton + +If I have not seen as far as others, it is because giants were standing on my shoulders. + -- Hal Abelson + +Mathematicians stand on each other's shoulders. + -- Gauss + +Mathemeticians stand on each other's shoulders while computer scientists stand on each other's toes. + -- Richard Hamming + +It has been said that physicists stand on one another's shoulders. If this is the case, then programmers stand on one another's toes, and software engineers dig each other's graves. + -- Unknown +% +If I'd known computer science was going to be like this, I'd never have given up being a rock 'n' roll star. + -- G. Hirst +% +If it happens once, it's a bug. +If it happens twice, it's a feature. +If it happens more than twice, it's a design philosophy. +% +If it has syntax, it isn't user friendly. +% +If it's not in the computer, it doesn't exist. +% +If it's worth hacking on well, it's worth hacking on for money. +% +If Machiavelli were a hacker, he'd have worked for the CSSG. + -- Phil Lapsley +% +If Machiavelli were a programmer, he'd have worked for AT&T. +% +"If that makes any sense to you, you have a big problem." + -- C. Durance, Computer Science 234 +% +If the automobile had followed the same development as the computer, a Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get a million miles per per gallon, and explode once a year killing everyone inside. + -- Robert Cringely, InfoWorld +% +If the code and the comments disagree, then both are probably wrong. + -- Norm Schryer +% +If the designers of X-window built cars, there would be no fewer than five steering wheels hidden about the cockpit, none of which followed the same prinicples -- but you'd be able to shift gears with your car stereo. Useful feature, that. + -- From the programming notebooks of a heretic, 1990. +% + If the Tao is great, then the operating system is great. If the operating system is great, then the compiler is great. If the compiler is great, then the application is great. If the application is great, then the user is pleased and there is harmony in the world. + The Tao gave birth to machine language. Machine language gave birth to the assembler. + The assembler gave birth to the compiler. Now there are ten thousand languages. + Each language has its purpose, however humble. Each language expresses the Yin and Yang of software. Each language has its place within the Tao. + But do not program in COBOL if you can avoid it. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +If the vendors started doing everything right, we would be out of a job. Let's hear it for OSI and X! With those babies in the wings, we can count on being employed until we drop, or get smart and switch to gardening, paper folding, or something. + -- C. Philip Wood +% +If this is timesharing, give me my share right now. +% +If you ever want to have a lot of fun, I recommend that you go off and program an embedded system. The salient characteristic of an embedded system is that it cannot be allowed to get into a state from which only direct intervention will suffice to remove it. An embedded system can't permanently trust anything it hears from the outside world. It must sniff around, adapt, consider, sniffaround, and adapt again. I'm not talking about ordinary modular programming carefulness here. No. Programming an embedded system calls for undiluted raging maniacal paranoia. For example, our ethernet front ends need to know what network number they are on so that they can address and route PUPs properly. How do you find out what your network number is? Easy, you ask a gateway. Gateways are required by definition to know their correct network numbers. Once you've got your network number, you start using it and before you can blink you've got it wired into fifteen different sockets spread all over creation. Now what happens when the panic-stricken operator realizes he was running the wrong version of the gateway which was giving out the wrong network number? Never supposed to happen. Tough. Supposing that your software discovers that the gateway is now giving out a different network number than before, what's it supposed to do about it? This is not discussed in the protocol document. Never supposed to happen. Tough. I think you get my drift. +% +If you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some. +% +If you put tomfoolery into a computer, nothing comes out but tomfoolery. But this tomfoolery, having passed through a very expensive machine, is somehow enobled and no-one dare criticise it. + -- Pierre Gallois +% +If you teach your children to like computers and to know how to gamble then they'll always be interested in something and won't come to no real harm. +% +If you think the system is working, ask someone who's waiting for a prompt. +% +If you're crossing the nation in a covered wagon, it's better to have four strong oxen than 100 chickens. Chickens are OK but we can't make them work together yet. + -- Ross Bott, Pyramid U.S., on multiprocessors at AUUGM '89. +% +Ignorance is bliss. + -- Thomas Gray +% +Fortune updates the great quotes, #42: + BLISS is ignorance. +% +Imagine if every Thursday your shoes exploded if you tied them the usual way. This happens to us all the time with computers, and nobody thinks of complaining. + -- Jeff Raskin +% +Imagine that Cray computer decides to make a personal computer. It has a 150 MHz processor, 200 megabytes of RAM, 1500 megabytes of disk storage, a screen resolution of 4096 x 4096 pixels, relies entirely on voice recognition for input, fits in your shirt pocket and costs $300. + +What's the first question that the computer community asks? "Is it PC compatible?" +% +**** IMPORTANT **** ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE **** + + Due to a recent systems overload error your recent disk files have been erased. Therefore, in accordance with the UNIX Basic Manual, University of Washington Geophysics Manual, and Bylaw 9(c), Section XII of the Revised Federal Communications Act, you are being granted Temporary Disk Space, valid for three months from this date, subject to the restrictions set forth in Appendix II of the Federal Communications Handbook (18th edition) as well as the references mentioned herein. You may apply for more disk space at any time. Disk usage in or above the eighth percentile will secure the removal of all restrictions and you will immediately receive your permanent disk space. Disk usage in the sixth or seventh percentile will not effect the validity of your temporary disk space, though its expiration date may be extended for a period of up to three months. A score in the fifth percentile or below will result in the withdrawal of your Temporary Disk space. +% +In a display of perverse brilliance, Carl the repairman mistakes a room humidifier for a mid-range computer but manages to tie it into the network anyway. + -- The 5th Wave +% +In a five year period we can get one superb programming language. Only we can't control when the five year period will begin. +% +In a surprise raid last night, federal agents ransacked a house in search of a rebel computer hacker. However, they were unable to complete the arrest because the warrant was made out in the name of Don Provan, while the only person in the house was named don provan. Proving, once again, that Unix is superior to Tops10. +% +In any formula, constants (especially those obtained from handbooks) are to be treated as variables. +% +In any problem, if you find yourself doing an infinite amount of work, the answer may be obtained by inspection. +% +In computing, the mean time to failure keeps getting shorter. +% +In English, every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in our programming languages. +% +In every non-trivial program there is at least one bug. +% +In fact, S. M. Simpson, eventually devised an efficient 24-point Fourier transform, which was a precursor to the Cooley-Tukey fast Fourier transform in 1965. The FFT made all of Simpson's efficient autocorrelation and spectrum programs instantly obsolete, on which he had worked half a lifetime. + -- Proc. IEEE, Sept. 1982, p.900 +% +In less than a century, computers will be making substantial progress on ... the overriding problem of war and peace. + -- James Slagle +% +In practice, failures in system development, like unemployment in Russia, happens a lot despite official propaganda to the contrary. + -- Paul Licker +% +In seeking the unattainable, simplicity only gets in the way. + -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982 +% + In the beginning there was data. The data was without form and null, and darkness was upon the face of the console; and the Spirit of IBM was moving over the face of the market. And DEC said, "Let there be registers"; and there were registers. And DEC saw that they carried; and DEC separated the data from the instructions. DEC called the data Stack, and the instructions they called Code. And there was evening and there was morning, one interrupt. + -- Rico Tudor, "The Story of Creation or, The Myth of Urk" +% + In the beginning was the Tao. The Tao gave birth to Space and Time. Therefore, Space and Time are the Yin and Yang of programming. + Programmers that do not comprehend the Tao are always running out of time and space for their programs. Programmers that comprehend the Tao always have enough time and space to accomplish their goals. + How could it be otherwise? + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + In the days when Sussman was a novice Minsky once came to him as he sat hacking at the PDP-6. + "What are you doing?", asked Minsky. + "I am training a randomly wired neural net to play Tic-Tac-Toe." + "Why is the net wired randomly?", inquired Minsky. + "I do not want it to have any preconceptions of how to play". + At this Minsky shut his eyes, and Sussman asked his teacher "Why do you close your eyes?" + "So that the room will be empty." + At that momment, Sussman was enlightened. +% + In the east there is a shark which is larger than all other fish. It changes into a bird whose winds are like clouds filling the sky. When this bird moves across the land, it brings a message from Corporate Headquarters. This message it drops into the midst of the program mers, like a seagull making its mark upon the beach. Then the bird mounts on the wind and, with the blue sky at its back, returns home. + The novice programmer stares in wonder at the bird, for he understands it not. The average programmer dreads the coming of the bird, for he fears its message. The master programmer continues to work at his terminal, for he does not know that the bird has come and gone. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +In the future, you're going to get computers as prizes in breakfast cereals. You'll throw them out because your house will be littered with them. +% +In the long run, every program becomes rococco, and then rubble. + -- Alan Perlis +% +... in three to eight years we will have a machine with the general intelligence of an average human being ... The machine will begin to educate itself with fantastic speed. In a few months it will be at genius level and a few months after that its powers will be incalculable ... + -- Marvin Minsky, LIFE Magazine, November 20, 1970 +% +Intel CPUs are not defective, they just act that way. + -- Henry Spencer +% +Introducing, the 1010, a one-bit processor. + +INSTRUCTION SET + Code Mnemonic What + 0 NOP No Operation + 1 JMP Jump (address specified by next 2 bits) +Now Available for only 12 1/2 cents! +% +IOT trap -- core dumped +% +Is a computer language with goto's totally Wirth-less? +% +Is it possible that software is not like anything else, that it is meant to be discarded: that the whole point is to always see it as a soap bubble? +% +: is not an identifier +% +Is your job running? You'd better go catch it! +% + It appears that after his death, Albert Einstein found himself working as the doorkeeper at the Pearly Gates. One slow day, he found that he had time to chat with the new entrants. To the first one he asked, "What's your IQ?" The new arrival replied, "190". They discussed Einstein's theory of relativity for hours. When the second new arrival came, Einstein once again inquired as to the newcomer's IQ. The answer this time came "120". To which Einstein replied, "Tell me, how did the Cubs do this year?" and they proceeded to talk for half an hour or so. To the final arrival, Einstein once again posed the question, "What's your IQ?". Upon receiving the answer "70", Einstein smiled and replied, "Got a minute to tell me about VMS 4.0?" +% +It appears that PL/I (and its dialects) is, or will be, the most widely used higher level language for systems programming. + -- J. Sammet +% + It is a period of system war. User programs, striking from a hidden directory, have won their first victory against the evil Administrative Empire. During the battle, User spies managed to steal secret source code to the Empire's ultimate program: the Are-Em Star, a privileged root program with enough power to destroy an entire file structure. Pursued by the Empire's sinister audit trail, Princess _LPA0 races ~ aboard her shell script, custodian of the stolen listings that could save her people, and restore freedom and games to the network... + -- DECWARS +% + It is a very humbling experience to make a multimillion-dollar mistake, but it is also very memorable. I vividly recall the night we decided how to organize the actual writing of external specifications for OS/360. The manager of architecture, the manager of control program implementation, and I were threshing out the plan, schedule, and division of responsibilities. + The architecture manager had 10 good men. He asserted that they could write the specifications and do it right. It would take ten months, three more than the schedule allowed. + The control program manager had 150 men. He asserted that they could prepare the specifications, with the architecture team coordinating; it would be well-done and practical, and he could do it on schedule. Futhermore, if the architecture team did it, his 150 men would sit twiddling their thumbs for ten months. + To this the architecture manager responded that if I gave the control program team the responsibility, the result would not in fact be on time, but would also be three months late, and of much lower quality. I did, and it was. He was right on both counts. Moreover, the lack of conceptual integrity made the system far more costly to build and change, and I would estimate that it added a year to debugging time. + -- Frederick Brooks Jr., "The Mythical Man Month" +% +It is against the grain of modern education to teach children to program. What fun is there in making plans, acquiring discipline in organizing thoughts, devoting attention to detail, and learning to be self-critical? + -- Alan Perlis +% +It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice versa. +% +It is easier to write an incorrect program than understand a correct one. +% +... it is easy to be blinded to the essential uselessness of them by the sense of achievement you get from getting them to work at all. In other words... their fundamental design flaws are completely hidden by their superficial design flaws. + -- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, on the products of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation. +% +It is now pitch dark. If you proceed, you will likely fall into a pit. +% +It is possible by ingenuity and at the expense of clarity... {to do almost anything in any language}. However, the fact that it is possible to push a pea up a mountain with your nose does not mean that this is a sensible way of getting it there. Each of these techniques of language extension should be used in its proper place. + -- Christopher Strachey +% +It is practically impossible to teach good programming style to students that have had prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration. + -- Edsger W. Dijkstra, SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 17, Number 5 +% +[It is] best to confuse only one issue at a time. + -- K&R +% +It isn't easy being the parent of a six-year-old. However, it's a pretty small price to pay for having somebody around the house who understands computers. +% +It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage, than the creation of a new system. For the initiator has the emnity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old institutions and merely lukewarm defenders in those who would gain by the new ones. + -- Niccolo Machiavelli, 1513 +% +"It runs like x, where x is something unsavory" + -- Prof. Romas Aleliunas, CS 435 +% + It took 300 years to build and by the time it was 10% built, everyone knew it would be a total disaster. But by then the investment was so big they felt compelled to go on. Since its completion, it has cost a fortune to maintain and is still in danger of collapsing. + There are at present no plans to replace it, since it was never really needed in the first place. + I expect every installation has its own pet software which is analogous to the above. + -- K.E. Iverson, on the Leaning Tower of Pisa +% +It turned out that the worm exploited three or four different holes in the system. From this, and the fact that we were able to capture and examine some of the source code, we realized that we were dealing with someone very sharp, probably not someone here on campus. + -- Dr. Richard LeBlanc, associate professor of ICS, in + Georgia Tech's campus newspaper after the Internet worm. +% +It was kinda like stuffing the wrong card in a computer, when you're stickin' those artificial stimulants in your arm. + -- Dion, noted computer scientist +% +It's a naive, domestic operating system without any breeding, but I think you'll be amused by its presumption. +% +It's multiple choice time... + What is FORTRAN? + a: Between thre and fiv tran. + b: What two computers engage in before they interface. + c: Ridiculous. +% +It's ten o'clock; do you know where your processes are? +% +Just about every computer on the market today runs Unix, except the Mac (and nobody cares about it). + -- Bill Joy 6/21/85 +% +Keep the number of passes in a compiler to a minimum. + -- D. Gries +% +Kiss your keyboard goodbye! +% +Know Thy User. +% +((lambda (foo) (bar foo)) (baz)) +% +`Lasu' Releases SAG 0.3 -- Freeware Book Takes Paves For New World Order by staff writers + ... + The SAG is one of the major products developed via the Information Superhighway, the brain child of Al Gore, US Vice President. The ISHW is being developed with massive govenment funding, since studies show that it already has more than four hundred users, three years before the first prototypes are ready. Asked whether he was worried about the foreign influence in an expensive American Dream, the vice president said, ``Finland? Oh, we've already bought them, but we haven't told anyone yet. They're great at building model airplanes as well. And I can spell potato.'' House representatives are not mollified, however, wanting to see the terms of the deal first, fearing another Alaska. + Rumors about the SAG release have imbalanced the American stock market for weeks. Several major publishing houses reached an all time low in the New York Stock Exchange, while publicly competing for the publishing agreement with Mr. Wirzenius. The negotiations did not work out, tough. ``Not enough dough,'' says the author, although spokesmen at both Prentice-Hall and Playboy, Inc., claim the author was incapable of expressing his wishes in a coherent form during face to face talks, preferring to communicate via e-mail. ``He kept muttering something about jiffies and pegs,'' they say. + ... + -- Lars Wirzenius + [comp.os.linux.announce] +% +`Lasu' Releases SAG 0.3 -- Freeware Book Takes Paves For New World Order by staff writers Helsinki, Finland, August 6, 1995 -- In a surprise movement, Lars ``Lasu'' Wirzenius today released the 0.3 edition of the ``Linux System Administrators' Guide''. Already an industry non-classic, the new version sports such overwhelming features as an overview of a Linux system, a completely new climbing session in a tree, and a list of acknowledgements in the introduction. + The SAG, as the book is affectionately called, is one of the corner stones of the Linux Documentation Project. ``We at the LDP feel that we wouldn't be able to produce anything at all, that all our work would be futile, if it weren't for the SAG,'' says Matt Welsh, director of LDP, Inc. + The new version is still distributed freely, now even with a copyright that allows modification. ``More dough,'' explains the author. Despite insistent rumors about blatant commercialization, the SAG will probably remain free. ``Even more dough,'' promises the author. + The author refuses to comment on Windows NT and Windows 96 versions, claiming not to understand what the question is about. Industry gossip, however, tells that Bill Gates, co-founder and CEO of Microsoft, producer of the Windows series of video games, has visited Helsinki several times this year. Despite of this, Linus Torvalds, author of the word processor Linux with which the SAG was written, is not worried. ``We'll have world domination real soon now, anyway,'' he explains, ``for 1.4 at the lastest.'' + ... + -- Lars Wirzenius + [comp.os.linux.announce] +% +Let the machine do the dirty work. + -- "Elements of Programming Style", Kernighan and Ritchie +% +Leveraging always beats prototyping. +% +Life would be so much easier if we could just look at the source code. + -- Dave Olson +% +Like punning, programming is a play on words. +% +Line Printer paper is strongest at the perforations. +% +Lisp Users: Due to the holiday next Monday, there will be no garbage collection. +% +Little known fact about Middle Earth: The Hobbits had a very sophisticated computer network! It was a Tolkien Ring... +% +Logic doesn't apply to the real world. + -- Marvin Minsky +% +LOGO for the Dead + +LOGO for the Dead lets you continue your computing activities from "The Other Side." The package includes a unique telecommunications feature which lets you turn your TRS-80 into an electronic Ouija board. Then, using Logo's graphics capabilities, you can work with a friend or relative on this side of the Great Beyond to write programs. The software requires that your body be hardwired to an analog-to-digital converter, which is then interfaced to your computer. A special terminal (very terminal) program lets you talk with the users through Deadnet, an EBBS (Ectoplasmic Bulletin Board System). LOGO for the Dead is available for 10 percent of your estate from NecroSoft inc., 6502 Charnelhouse Blvd., Cleveland, OH 44101. + -- '80 Microcomputing +% + Long ago, in a finite state far away, there lived a JOVIAL character named Jack. Jack and his relations were poor. Often their hash table was bare. One day Jack's parent said to him, "Our matrices are sparse. You must go to the market to exchange our RAM for some BASICs." She compiled a linked list of items to retrieve and passed it to him. + So Jack set out. But as he was walking along a Hamilton path, he met the traveling salesman. + "Whither dost thy flow chart take thou?" prompted the salesman in high-level language. + "I'm going to the market to exchange this RAM for some chips and Apples," commented Jack. + "I have a much better algorithm. You needn't join a queue there; I will swap your RAM for these magic kernels now." + Jack made the trade, then backtracked to his house. But when he told his busy-waiting parent of the deal, she became so angry she started thrashing. + "Don't you even have any artificial intelligence? All these kernels together hardly make up one byte," and she popped them out the window... + -- Mark Isaak, "Jack and the Beanstack" +% +Long computations which yield zero are probably all for naught. +% +Loose bits sink chips. +% +Mac Airways: The cashiers, flight attendants and pilots all look the same, feel the same and act the same. When asked questions about the flight, they reply that you don't want to know, don't need to know and would you please return to your seat and watch the movie. +% +Mac Beer: At first, came only a 16-oz. can, but now comes in a 32-oz. can. Considered by many to be a "light" beer. All the cans look identical. When you take one from the fridge, it opens itself. The ingredients list is not on the can. If you call to ask about the ingredients, you are told that "you don't need to know." A notice on the side reminds you to drag your empties to the trashcan. +% +MAC user's dynamic debugging list evaluator? Never heard of that. +% +"Mach was the greatest intellectual fraud in the last ten years." +"What about X?" +"I said `intellectual'." + ;login, 9/1990 +% +Machines certainly can solve problems, store information, correlate, and play games -- but not with pleasure. + -- Leo Rosten +% +Machines that have broken down will work perfectly when the repairman arrives. +% +Make sure your code does nothing gracefully. +% +Making files is easy under the UNIX operating system. Therefore, users tend to create numerous files using large amounts of file space. It has been said that the only standard thing about all UNIX systems is the message-of-the-day telling users to clean up their files. + -- System V.2 administrator's guide +% +Man is the best computer we can put aboard a spacecraft ... and the only one that can be mass produced with unskilled labor. + -- Wernher von Braun +% +Many companies that have made themselves dependent on [the equipment of a certain major manufacturer] (and in doing so have sold their soul to the devil) will collapse under the sheer weight of the unmastered complexity of their data processing systems. + -- Edsger W. Dijkstra, SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 17, Number 5 +% +Many of the convicted thieves Parker has met began their life of crime after taking college Computer Science courses. + -- Roger Rapoport, "Programs for Plunder", Omni, March 1981 +% +Martin was probably ripping them off. That's some family, isn't it? Incest, prostitution, fanaticism, software. + -- Charles Willeford, "Miami Blues" +% +Marvelous! The super-user's going to boot me! What a finely tuned response to the situation! +% +** MAXIMUM TERMINALS ACTIVE. TRY AGAIN LATER ** +% +May all your PUSHes be POPped. +% +May Euell Gibbons eat your only copy of the manual! +% +May the bluebird of happiness twiddle your bits. +% +Maybe Computer Science should be in the College of Theology. + -- R. S. Barton +% + Meantime, in the slums below Ronnie's Ranch, Cynthia feels as if some one has made voodoo boxen of her and her favorite backplanes. On this fine moonlit night, some horrible persona has been jabbing away at, dragging magnets over, and surging these voodoo boxen. Fortunately, they seem to have gotten a bit bored and fallen asleep, for it looks like Cynthia may get to go home. However, she has made note to quickly put together a totem of sweaty, sordid static straps, random bits of wire, flecks of once meaniful oxide, bus grant cards, gummy worms, and some bits of old pdp backplane to hang above the machine room. This totem must be blessed by the old and wise venerable god of unibus at once, before the idolatization of vme, q and pc bus drive him to bitter revenge. Alas, if this fails, and the voodoo boxen aren't destroyed, there may be more than worms in the apple. Next, the arrival of voodoo optico transmitigational magneto killer paramecium, capable of teleporting from cable to cable, screen to screen, ear to ear and hoof to mouth... +% +Memory fault - where am I? +% +Memory fault -- brain fried +% +Memory fault -- core...uh...um...core... Oh dammit, I forget! +% +MESSAGE ACKNOWLEDGED -- The Pershing II missiles have been launched. +% +Message from Our Sponsor on ttyTV at 13:58 ... +% +Modeling paged and segmented memories is tricky business. + -- P.J. Denning +% +Mommy, what happens to your files when you die? +% +Most public domain software is free, at least at first glance. +% +MOUNT TAPE U1439 ON B3, NO RING +% + Mr. Jones related an incident from "some time back" when IBM Canada Ltd. of Markham, Ont., ordered some parts from a new supplier in Japan. The company noted in its order that acceptable quality allowed for 1.5 per cent defects (a fairly high standard in North America at the time). + The Japanese sent the order, with a few parts packaged separately in plastic. The accompanying letter said: "We don't know why you want 1.5 per cent defective parts, but for your convenience, we've packed them separately." + -- Excerpted from an article in The (Toronto) Globe and Mail +% +MSDOS is not dead, it just smells that way. + -- Henry Spencer +% +Much of the excitement we get out of our work is that we don't really know what we are doing. + -- E. Dijkstra +% +Multics is security spelled sideways. +% +MVS Air Lines: The passengers all gather in the hangar, watching hundreds of technicians check the flight systems on this immense, luxury aircraft. This plane has at least 10 engines and seats over 1,000 passengers; bigger models in the fleet can have more engines than anyone can count and fly even more passengers than there are on Earth. It is claimed to cost less per passenger mile to operate these humungous planes than any other aircraft ever built, unless you personally have to pay for the ticket. All the passengers scramble aboard, as do the 200 technicians needed to keep it from crashing. The pilot takes his place up in the glass cockpit. He guns the engines, only to realise that the plane is too big to get through the hangar doors. +% +My sister opened a computer store in Hawaii. She sells C shells down by the seashore. +% + n = ((n >> 1) & 0x55555555) | ((n << 1) & 0xaaaaaaaa); + n = ((n >> 2) & 0x33333333) | ((n << 2) & 0xcccccccc); + n = ((n >> 4) & 0x0f0f0f0f) | ((n << 4) & 0xf0f0f0f0); + n = ((n >> 8) & 0x00ff00ff) | ((n << 8) & 0xff00ff00); + n = ((n >> 16) & 0x0000ffff) | ((n << 16) & 0xffff0000); + -- C code which reverses the bits in a word. +% +Nearly every complex solution to a programming problem that I have looked at carefully has turned out to be wrong. + -- Brent Welch +% +Never make anything simple and efficient when a way can be found to make it complex and wonderful. +% +Never put off till run-time what you can do at compile-time. + -- D. Gries +% +Never test for an error condition you don't know how to handle. + -- Steinbach +% +Never trust a computer you can't repair yourself. +% +Never trust an operating system. +% +Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes. + -- Dr. Warren Jackson, Director, UTCS +% +New systems generate new problems. +% +*** NEWS FLASH *** +Archeologists find PDP-11/24 inside brain cavity of fossilized dinosaur skeleton! Many Digital users fear that RSX-11M may be even more primitive than DEC admits. Price adjustments at 11:00. +% +news: gotcha +% +Niklaus Wirth has lamented that, whereas Europeans pronounce his name correctly (Ni-klows Virt), Americans invariably mangle it into (Nick-les Worth). Which is to say that Europeans call him by name, but Americans call him by value. +% +No directory. +% +No extensible language will be universal. + -- T. Cheatham +% +No hardware designer should be allowed to produce any piece of hardware until three software guys have signed off for it. + -- Andy Tanenbaum +% +No line available at 300 baud. +% +No man is an island if he's on at least one mailing list. +% +No part of this message may reproduce, store itself in a retrieval system, or transmit disease, in any form, without the permissiveness of the author. + -- Chris Shaw +% +No proper program contains an indication which as an operator-applied occurrence identifies an operator-defining occurrence which as an indication-applied occurrence identifies an indication-defining occurrence different from the one identified by the given indication as an indication-applied occurrence. + -- ALGOL 68 Report +% +No wonder Clairol makes so much money selling shampoo. Lather, Rinse, Repeat is an infinite loop! +% +No, I'm not interested in developing a powerful brain. All I'm after is just a mediocre brain, something like the president of American Telephone and Telegraph Company. + -- Alan Turing on the possibilities of a thinking + machine, 1943. +% +Nobody said computers were going to be polite. +% +Nobody's gonna believe that computers are intelligent until they start coming in late and lying about it. +% +nohup rm -fr /& +% +Norbert Weiner was the subject of many dotty professor stories. Weiner was, in fact, very absent minded. The following story is told about him: when they moved from Cambridge to Newton his wife, knowing that he would be absolutely useless on the move, packed him off to MIT while she directed the move. Since she was certain that he would forget that they had moved and where they had moved to, she wrote down the new address on a piece of paper, and gave it to him. Naturally, in the course of the day, an insight occurred to him. He reached in his pocket, found a piece of paper on which he furiously scribbled some notes, thought it over, decided there was a fallacy in his idea, and threw the piece of paper away. At the end of the day he went home (to the old address in Cambridge, of course). When he got there he realized that they had moved, that he had no idea where they had moved to, and that the piece of paper with the address was long gone. Fortunately inspiration struck. There was a young girl on the street and he conceived the idea of asking her where he had moved to, saying, "Excuse me, perhaps you know me. I'm Norbert Weiner and we've just moved. Would you know where we've moved to?" To which the young girl replied, "Yes, Daddy, Mommy thought you would forget." + The capper to the story is that I asked his daughter (the girl in the story) about the truth of the story, many years later. She said that it wasn't quite true -- that he never forgot who his children were! The rest of it, however, was pretty close to what actually happened... + -- Richard Harter +% +Not only is UNIX dead, it's starting to smell really bad. + -- Rob Pike +% +Nothing happens. +% + Now she speaks rapidly. "Do you know *why* you want to program?" + He shakes his head. He hasn't the faintest idea. + "For the sheer *joy* of programming!" she cries triumphantly. "The joy of the parent, the artist, the craftsman. "You take a program, born weak and impotent as a dimly-realized solution. You nurture the program and guide it down the right path, building, watching it grow ever stronger. Sometimes you paint with tiny strokes, a keystroke added here, a keystroke changed there." She sweeps her arm in a wide arc. "And other times you savage whole *blocks* of code, ripping out the program's very *essence*, then beginning anew. But always building, creating, filling the program with your own personal stamp, your own quirks and nuances. Watching the program grow stronger, patching it when it crashes, until finally it can stand alone -- proud, powerful, and perfect. This is the programmer's finest hour!" Softly at first, then louder, he hears the strains of a Sousa march. "This ... this is your canvas! your clay! Go forth and create a masterwork!" +% +"Now this is a totally brain damaged algorithm. Gag me with a smurfette." + -- P. Buhr, Computer Science 354 +% +"Nuclear war can ruin your whole compile." + -- Karl Lehenbauer +% +Nurse Donna: Oh, Groucho, I'm afraid I'm gonna wind up an old maid. Groucho: Well, bring her in and we'll wind her up together. Nurse Donna: Do you believe in computer dating? Groucho: Only if the computers really love each other. +% +Oh, so there you are! +% +Okay, Okay -- I admit it. You didn't change that program that worked just a little while ago; I inserted some random characters into the executable. Please forgive me. You can recover the file by typing in the code over again, since I also removed the source. +% +Old mail has arrived. +% +Old programmers never die, they just become managers. +% +Old programmers never die, they just branch to a new address. +% +Old programmers never die, they just hit account block limit. +% +On a clear disk you can seek forever. + -- P. Denning +% +On the eighth day, God created FORTRAN. +% +On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog. + -- Cartoon caption +% + On the other hand, the TCP camp also has a phrase for OSI people. There are lots of phrases. My favorite is `nitwit' -- and the rationale is the Internet philosophy has always been you have extremely bright, non-partisan researchers look at a topic, do world-class research, do several competing implementations, have a bake-off, determine what works best, write it down and make that the standard. + The OSI view is entirely opposite. You take written contributions from a much larger community, you put the contributions in a room of committee people with, quite honestly, vast political differences and all with their own political axes to grind, and four years later you get something out, usually without it ever having been implemented once. + So the Internet perspective is implement it, make it work well, then write it down, whereas the OSI perspective is to agree on it, write it down, circulate it a lot and now we'll see if anyone can implement it after it's an international standard and every vendor in the world is committed to it. One of those processes is backwards, and I don't think it takes a Lucasian professor of physics at Oxford to figure out which. + -- Marshall Rose, "The Pied Piper of OSI" +% +On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!], "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. + -- Charles Babbage +% +"One Architecture, One OS" also translates as "One Egg, One Basket". +% +"One basic notion underlying Usenet is that it is a cooperative." Having been on USENET for going on ten years, I disagree with this. The basic notion underlying USENET is the flame. + -- Chuq Von Rospach +% + One day a student came to Moon and said, "I understand how to make a better garbage collector. We must keep a reference count of the pointers to each cons." + Moon patiently told the student the following story -- "One day a student came to Moon and said, "I understand how to make a better garbage collector..." +% +One good reason why computers can do more work than people is that they never have to stop and answer the phone. +% +... one of the main causes of the fall of the Roman Empire was that, lacking zero, they had no way to indicate successful termination of their C programs. + -- Robert Firth +% +One of the most overlooked advantages to computers is... If they do foul up, there's no law against whacking them around a little. + -- Joe Martin +% + One of the questions that comes up all the time is: How enthusiastic is our support for UNIX? + Unix was written on our machines and for our machines many years ago. Today, much of UNIX being done is done on our machines. Ten percent of our VAXs are going for UNIX use. UNIX is a simple language, easy to understand, easy to get started with. It's great for students, great for somewhat casual users, and it's great for interchanging programs between different machines. And so, because of its popularity in these markets, we support it. We have good UNIX on VAX and good UNIX on PDP-11s. + It is our belief, however, that serious professional users will run out of things they can do with UNIX. They'll want a real system and will end up doing VMS when they get to be serious about programming. + With UNIX, if you're looking for something, you can easily and quickly check that small manual and find out that it's not there. With VMS, no matter what you look for -- it's literally a five-foot shelf of documentation -- if you look long enough it's there. That's the difference -- the beauty of UNIX is it's simple; and the beauty of VMS is that it's all there. + -- Ken Olsen, president of DEC, DECWORLD Vol. 8 No. 5, 1984 [It's been argued that the beauty of UNIX is the same as the beauty of Ken Olsen's brain. Ed.] +% +One person's error is another person's data. +% +One picture is worth 128K words. +% +Only great masters of style can succeed in being obtuse. + -- Oscar Wilde Most UNIX programmers are great masters of style. + -- The Unnamed Usenetter +% +Only the fittest survive. The vanquished acknowledge their unworthiness by placing a classified ad with the ritual phrase "must sell -- best offer," and thereafter dwell in infamy, relegated to discussing gas mileage and lawn food. But if successful, you join the elite sodality that spends hours unpurifying the dialect of the tribe with arcane talk of bits and bytes, RAMS and ROMS, hard disks and baud rates. Are you obnoxious, obsessed? It's a modest price to pay. For you have tapped into the same awesome primal power that produces credit-card billing errors and lost plane reservations. Hail, postindustrial warrior, subduer of Bounceoids, pride of the cosmos, keeper of the silicone creed: Computo, ergo sum. The force is with you -- at 110 volts. May your RAMS be fruitful and multiply. + -- Curt Suplee, "Smithsonian", 4/83 +% +OS/2 Beer: Comes in a 32-oz can. Does allow you to drink several DOS Beers simultaneously. Allows you to drink Windows 3.1 Beer simultaneously too, but somewhat slower. Advertises that its cans won't explode when you open them, even if you shake them up. You never really see anyone drinking OS/2 Beer, but the manufacturer (International Beer Manufacturing) claims that 9 million six-packs have been sold. +% +OS/2 Skyways: The terminal is almost empty, with only a few prospective passengers milling about. The announcer says that their flight has just departed, wishes them a good flight, though there are no planes on the runway. Airline personnel walk around, apologising profusely to customers in hushed voices, pointing from time to time to the sleek, powerful jets outside the terminal on the field. They tell each passenger how good the real flight will be on these new jets and how much safer it will be than Windows Airlines, but that they will have to wait a little longer for the technicians to finish the flight systems. Maybe until mid-1995. Maybe longer. +% +"Our attitude with TCP/IP is, `Hey, we'll do it, but don't make a big system, because we can't fix it if it breaks -- nobody can.'" "TCP/IP is OK if you've got a little informal club, and it doesn't make any difference if it takes a while to fix it." + -- Ken Olson, in Digital News, 1988 +% +Our documentation manager was showing her 2 year old son around the office. He was introduced to me, at which time he pointed out that we were both holding bags of popcorn. We were both holding bottles of juice. But only *he* had a lollipop. + He asked his mother, "Why doesn't HE have a lollipop?" + Her reply: "He can have a lollipop any time he wants to. That's what it means to be a programmer." +% +Our informal mission is to improve the love life of operators worldwide. + -- Peter Behrendt, president of Exabyte +% +Our OS who art in CPU, UNIX be thy name. + Thy programs run, thy syscalls done, + In kernel as it is in user! +% +Over the shoulder supervision is more a need of the manager than the programming task. +% +Overall, the philosophy is to attack the availability problem from two complementary directions: to reduce the number of software errors through rigorous testing of running systems, and to reduce the effect of the remaining errors by providing for recovery from them. An interesting footnote to this design is that now a system failure can usually be considered to be the result of two program errors: the first, in the program that started the problem; the second, in the recovery routine that could not protect the system. + -- A.L. Scherr, "Functional Structure of IBM Virtual Storage + Operating Systems, Part II: OS/VS-2 Concepts and + Philosophies," IBM Systems Journal, Vol. 12, No. 4. +% +Overconfidence breeds error when we take for granted that the game will continue on its normal course; when we fail to provide for an unusually powerful resource -- a check, a sacrifice, a stalemate. Afterwards the victim may wail, `But who could have dreamt of such an idiotic-looking move?' + -- Fred Reinfeld, "The Complete Chess Course" +% +Overflow on /dev/null, please empty the bit bucket. +% +Overload -- core meltdown sequence initiated. +% +panic: can't find / +% +panic: kernel segmentation violation. core dumped (only kidding) +% +panic: kernel trap (ignored) +% +Pascal is a language for children wanting to be naughty. + -- Dr. Kasi Ananthanarayanan +% +Pascal is not a high-level language. + -- Steven Feiner +% +"Pascal is Pascal is Pascal is dog meat." + -- M. Devine and P. Larson, Computer Science 340 +% +Passwords are implemented as a result of insecurity. +% +Pause for storage relocation. +% +Per buck you get more computing action with the small computer. + -- R.W. Hamming +% +PL/I -- "the fatal disease" -- belongs more to the problem set than to the solution set. + -- Edsger W. Dijkstra, SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 17, Number 5 +% +Play Rogue, visit exotic locations, meet strange creatures and kill them. +% +Please go away. +% +PLUG IT IN!!! +% +Premature optimization is the root of all evil. + -- D.E. Knuth +% + Price Wang's programmer was coding software. His fingers danced upon the keyboard. The program compiled without an error message, and the program ran like a gentle wind. + Excellent!" the Price exclaimed, "Your technique is faultless!" + "Technique?" said the programmer, turning from his terminal, "What I follow is the Tao -- beyond all technique. When I first began to program I would see before me the whole program in one mass. After three years I no longer saw this mass. Instead, I used subroutines. But now I see nothing. My whole being exists in a formless void. My senses are idle. My spirit, free to work without a plan, follows its own instinct. In short, my program writes itself. True, sometimes there are difficult problems. I see them coming, I slow down, I watch silently. Then I change a single line of code and the difficulties vanish like puffs of idle smoke. I then compile the program. I sit still and let the joy of the work fill my being. I close my eyes for a moment and then log off." + Price Wang said, "Would that all of my programmers were as wise!" + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +Prof: So the American government went to IBM to come up with a data + encryption standard and they came up with ... Student: EBCDIC!" +% +Profanity is the one language all programmers know best. +% +Programmers do it bit by bit. +% +Programmers used to batch environments may find it hard to live without giant listings; we would find it hard to use them. + -- D.M. Ritchie +% +Programming is an unnatural act. +% +Put no trust in cryptic comments. +% +RAM wasn't built in a day. +% +Rattling around the back of my head is a disturbing image of something I saw at the airport ... Now I'm remembering, those giant piles of computer magazines right next to "People" and "Time" in the airport store. Does it bother anyone else that half the world is being told all of our hard-won secrets of computer technology? Remember how all the lawyers cried foul when "How to Avoid Probate" was published? Are they taking no-fault insurance lying down? No way! But at the current rate it won't be long before there are stacks of the "Transactions on Information Theory" at the A&P checkout counters. Who's going to be impressed with us electrical engineers then? Are we, as the saying goes, giving away the store? + -- Robert W. Lucky, IEEE President +% +Reactor error - core dumped! +% +Real computer scientists admire ADA for its overwhelming aesthetic value but they find it difficult to actually program in it, as it is much too large to implement. Most computer scientists don't notice this because they are still arguing over what else to add to ADA. +% +Real computer scientists despise the idea of actual hardware. Hardware has limitations, software doesn't. It's a real shame that Turing machines are so poor at I/O. +% +Real computer scientists don't comment their code. The identifiers are so long they can't afford the disk space. +% +Real computer scientists don't program in assembler. They don't write in anything less portable than a number two pencil. +% +Real computer scientists don't write code. They occasionally tinker with `programming systems', but those are so high level that they hardly count (and rarely count accurately; precision is for applications). +% +Real computer scientists like having a computer on their desk, else how could they read their mail? +% +Real computer scientists only write specs for languages that might run on future hardware. Nobody trusts them to write specs for anything homo sapiens will ever be able to fit on a single planet. +% +Real programmers disdain structured programming. Structured programming is for compulsive neurotics who were prematurely toilet- trained. They wear neckties and carefully line up pencils on otherwise clear desks. +% +Real programmers don't bring brown-bag lunches. If the vending machine doesn't sell it, they don't eat it. Vending machines don't sell quiche. +% +Real programmers don't comment their code. It was hard to write, it should be hard to understand. +% +Real programmers don't draw flowcharts. Flowcharts are, after all, the illiterate's form of documentation. Cavemen drew flowcharts; look how much good it did them. +% +Real Programmers don't eat quiche. They eat Twinkies and Szechwan food. +% +Real Programmers don't play tennis, or any other sport that requires you to change clothes. Mountain climbing is OK, and real programmers wear their climbing boots to work in case a mountain should suddenly spring up in the middle of the machine room. +% +Real programmers don't write in BASIC. Actually, no programmers write in BASIC after reaching puberty. +% +Real Programmers don't write in FORTRAN. FORTRAN is for pipe stress freaks and crystallography weenies. FORTRAN is for wimp engineers who wear white socks. +% +Real Programmers don't write in PL/I. PL/I is for programmers who can't decide whether to write in COBOL or FORTRAN. +% +Real Programmers think better when playing Adventure or Rogue. +% +Real programs don't eat cache. +% +Real Programs don't use shared text. Otherwise, how can they use functions for scratch space after they are finished calling them? +% +Real software engineers don't debug programs, they verify correctness. This process doesn't necessarily involve execution of anything on a computer, except perhaps a Correctness Verification Aid package. +% +Real software engineers don't like the idea of some inexplicable and greasy hardware several aisles away that may stop working at any moment. They have a great distrust of hardware people, and wish that systems could be virtual at *all* levels. They would like personal computers (you know no one's going to trip over something and kill your DFA in mid-transit), except that they need 8 megabytes to run their Correctness Verification Aid packages. +% +Real software engineers work from 9 to 5, because that is the way the job is described in the formal spec. Working late would feel like using an undocumented external procedure. +% +Real Users are afraid they'll break the machine -- but they're never afraid to break your face. +% +Real Users find the one combination of bizarre input values that shuts down the system for days. +% +Real Users hate Real Programmers. +% +Real Users know your home telephone number. +% +Real Users never know what they want, but they always know when your program doesn't deliver it. +% +Real Users never use the Help key. +% +Recursion is the root of computation since it trades description for time. +% +Remember the good old days, when CPU was singular? +% +Remember, God could only create the world in 6 days because he didn't have an established user base. +% +Remember, UNIX spelled backwards is XINU. + -- Mt. +% +Remember: use logout to logout. +% + Risch's decision procedure for integration, not surprisingly, uses a recursion on the number and type of the extensions from the rational functions needed to represent the integrand. Although the algorithm follows and critically depends upon the appropriate structure of the input, as in the case of multivariate factorization, we cannot claim that the algorithm is a natural one. In fact, the creator of differential algebra, Ritt, committed suicide in the early 1950's, largely, it is claimed, because few paid attention to his work. Probably he would have received more attention had he obtained the algorithm as well. + -- Joel Moses, "Algorithms and Complexity", ed. J.F. Traub +% +Row, row, row your bits, gently down the stream... +% +Save energy: Drive a smaller shell. +% +Save gas, don't use the shell. +% +Save yourself! Reboot in 5 seconds! +% +Say "twenty-three-skiddoo" to logout. +% +SCCS, the source motel! Programs check in and never check out! + -- Ken Thompson +% +Science is to computer science as hydrodynamics is to plumbing. +% +Scientists were preparing an experiment to ask the ultimate question. They had worked for months gathering one each of every computer that was built. Finally the big day was at hand. All the computers were linked together. They asked the question, "Is there a God?". Lights started blinking, flashing and blinking some more. Suddenly, there was a loud crash, and a bolt of lightning came down from the sky, struck the computers, and welded all the connections permanently together. "There is now", came the reply. +% +Seems a computer engineer, a systems analyst, and a programmer were driving down a mountain when the brakes gave out. They screamed down the mountain, gaining speed, but finally managed to grind to a halt, more by luck than anything else, just inches from a thousand foot drop to jagged rocks. They all got out of the car: The computer engineer said, "I think I can fix it." The systems analyst said, "No, no, I think we should take it into town and have a specialist look at it." The programmer said, "OK, but first I think we should get back in and see if it does it again." +% +SEMINAR ANNOUNCEMENT +Title: Are Frogs Turing Compatible? +Speaker: Don "The Lion" Knuth + +ABSTRACT + Several researchers at the University of Louisiana have been studying the computing power of various amphibians, frogs in particular. The problem of frog computability has become a critical issue that ranges across all areas of computer science. It has been shown that anything computable by an amphi- bian community in a fixed-size pond is computable by a frog in the same-size pond -- that is to say, frogs are Pond-space complete. We will show that there is a log-space, polywog-time reduction from any Turing machine program to a frog. We will suggest these represent a proper subset of frog-computable functions. + This is not just a let's-see-how-far-those-frogs-can-jump seminar. This is only for hardcore amphibian-computation people and their colleagues. + Refreshments will be served. Music will be played. +% +Send some filthy mail. +% +Sendmail may be safely run set-user-id to root. + -- Eric Allman, "Sendmail Installation Guide" +% + Several students were asked to prove that all odd integers are prime. + The first student to try to do this was a math student. "Hmmm... Well, 1 is prime, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, and by induction, we have that all the odd integers are prime." + The second student to try was a man of physics who commented, "I'm not sure of the validity of your proof, but I think I'll try to prove it by experiment." He continues, "Well, 1 is prime, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is... uh, 9 is... uh, 9 is an experimental error, 11 is prime, 13 is prime... Well, it seems that you're right." + The third student to try it was the engineering student, who responded, "Well, to be honest, actually, I'm not sure of your answer either. Let's see... 1 is prime, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is... uh, 9 is... well, if you approximate, 9 is prime, 11 is prime, 13 is prime... Well, it does seem right." + Not to be outdone, the computer science student comes along and says "Well, you two sort've got the right idea, but you'll end up taking too long! I've just whipped up a program to REALLY go and prove it." He goes over to his terminal and runs his program. Reading the output on the screen he says, "1 is prime, 1 is prime, 1 is prime, 1 is prime..." +% +She sells cshs by the cshore. +% +Simulations are like miniskirts, they show a lot and hide the essentials. + -- Hubert Kirrman +% +skldfjkljklsR%^&(IXDRTYju187pkasdjbasdfbuil h;asvgy8p 23r1vyui135 2 kmxsij90TYDFS$$b jkzxdjkl bjnk ;j nk;<[][;-==-<<<<<';[, + [hjioasdvbnuio;buip^&(FTSD$%*VYUI:buio;sdf}[asdf'] + sdoihjfh(_YU*G&F^*CTY98y + +Now look what you've gone and done! You've BROKEN it! +% +Slowly and surely the unix crept up on the Nintendo user ... +% +So you see Antonio, why worry about one little core dump, eh? In reality all core dumps happen at the same instant, so the core dump you will have tomorrow, why, it already happened. You see, it's just a little universal recursive joke which threads our lives through the infinite potential of the instant. So go to sleep, Antonio, your thread could break any moment and cast you out of the safe security of the instant into the dark void of eternity, the anti-time. So go to sleep... +% +Software production is assumed to be a line function, but it is run like a staff function. + -- Paul Licker +% +Software suppliers are trying to make their software packages more "user-friendly". ... Their best approach, so far, has been to take all the old brochures, and stamp the words, "user-friendly" on the cover. + -- Bill Gates, Microsoft, Inc. + [Pot. Kettle. Black.] +% +Some of my readers ask me what a "Serial Port" is. The answer is: I don't know. Is it some kind of wine you have with breakfast? +% +Some people claim that the UNIX learning curve is steep, but at least you only have to climb it once. +% +Some programming languages manage to absorb change, but withstand progress. + -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982 +% +Somebody's terminal is dropping bits. I found a pile of them over in the corner. +% + Something mysterious is formed, born in the silent void. Waiting alone and unmoving, it is at once still and yet in constant motion. It is the source of all programs. I do not know its name, so I will call it the Tao of Programming. + If the Tao is great, then the operating system is great. If the operating system is great, then the compiler is great. If the compiler is greater, then the applications is great. The user is pleased and there is harmony in the world. + The Tao of Programming flows far away and returns on the wind of morning. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +Speaking as someone who has delved into the intricacies of PL/I, I am sure that only Real Men could have written such a machine-hogging, cycle-grabbing, all-encompassing monster. Allocate an array and free the middle third? Sure! Why not? Multiply a character string times a bit string and assign the result to a float decimal? Go ahead! Free a controlled variable procedure parameter and reallocate it before passing it back? Overlay three different types of variable on the same memory location? Anything you say! Write a recursive macro? Well, no, but Real Men use rescan. How could a language so obviously designed and written by Real Men not be intended for Real Man use? +% +***** Special AI Seminar +ABSTRACT +It has been widely recognized that AI programs require expert knowledge in order to perform well in complex domains. But knowledge alone is not sufficient for some applications; wisdom is needed as well. Accordingly, we have developed a new approach to artificial intelligence which we call "wisdom engineering". As a test of our ideas, we have written IMMANUEL, a wisdom based system for the task domain of western philosophical thought. IMMANUEL was supplied initially with 200 wisdom units which contained wisdom about such elementary concepts as mind, matter, being, nothingness, and so forth. IMMANUEL was then allowed to run freely, guided by the heuristic rules contained in its heterarchically organized meta wisdom base. IMMANUEL succeeded in rediscovering most of the important philosophical ideas developed in western culture over the course of the last 25 centuries, including those underlying Plato's theory of government, Kant's metaphysics, Nietzsche's theory of value, and Husserl's phenomenology. In this seminar, we will describe IMMANUEL's achievements and internal architecture. We will also briefly discuss our recent efforts to apply wisdom engineering to oil exploration. +% +Staff meeting in the conference room in %d minutes. +% +Staff meeting in the conference room in 3 minutes. +% +Standards are crucial. And the best thing about standards is: there are so *many* to choose from! +% +Still a few bugs in the system... Someday I have to tell you about Uncle Nahum from Maine, who spent years trying to cross a jellyfish with a shad so he could breed boneless shad. His experiment backfired too, and he wound up with bony jellyfish... which was hardly worth the trouble. There's very little call for those up there. + -- Allucquere R. "Sandy" Stone +% +Stinginess with privileges is kindness in disguise. + -- Guide to VAX/VMS Security, Sep. 1984 +% + Stop! Whoever crosseth the bridge of Death, must answer first these questions three, ere the other side he see! + "What is your name?" + "Sir Brian of Bell." + "What is your quest?" + "I seek the Holy Grail." + "What are four lowercase letters that are not legal flag arguments to the Berkeley UNIX version of `ls'?" + "I, er.... AIIIEEEEEE!" +% + *** STUDENT SUCCESSES *** +Many of our students have gone on to achieve great success in all fields of programming. One former student developed the concept of the personalized form letter. Does the phrase, "Dear Mr.(insert name), You may already be a winner!," sound familiar? Another student writes "After only five lessons I sold a "My Most Unforgettable Program" article to Corrosive Computing magazine. Another of our graduates writes, "I recently completed a database-management program for my department manager. My program touched him so deeply that he was speechless. He told me later that he had never seen such a program in his entire career. Thank you, Famous Programmers' school; only you could have made this possible." Send for our introductory brochure which explains in vague detail the operation of the Famous Programmers' School, and you'll be eligible to win a possible chance to enter a drawing, the winner of which can vie for a set of free steak knives. If you don't do it now, you'll hate yourself in the morning. +% +Such efforts are almost always slow, laborious, political, petty, boring, ponderous, thankless, and of the utmost criticality. + -- Leonard Kleinrock, on standards efforts +% +Suppose for a moment that the automobile industry had developed at the same rate as computers and over the same period: how much cheaper and more efficient would the current models be? If you have not already heard the analogy, the answer is shattering. Today you would be able to buy a Rolls-Royce for $2.75, it would do three million miles to the gallon, and it would deliver enough power to drive the Queen Elizabeth II. And if you were interested in miniaturization, you could place half a dozen of them on a pinhead. + -- Christopher Evans +% +Swap read error. You lose your mind. +% +Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon. + -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982 +% +System checkpoint complete. +% +System going down at 1:45 this afternoon for disk crashing. +% +System going down at 5 this afternoon to install scheduler bug. +% +Systems have sub-systems and sub-systems have sub-systems and so on ad infinitum -- which is why we're always starting over. + -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982 +% +Systems programmers are the high priests of a low cult. + -- R.S. Barton +% +Testing can show the presense of bugs, but not their absence. + -- Dijkstra +% +TeX is potentially the most significant invention in typesetting in this century. It introduces a standard language for computer typography, and in terms of importance could rank near the introduction of the Gutenberg press. + -- Gordon Bell +% +"Text processing has made it possible to right-justify any idea, even one which cannot be justified on any other grounds." + -- J. Finnegan, USC. +% +That does not compute. +% +... that the notions of "hardware", and "software" should be extended by the notion of LIVEWARE - being that which produces software for use on hardware. This produces an obvious extension to the concept of MONITORS. A liveware monitor is a person dedicated to the task of ensuring that the liveware does not interfere with the real-time processes, invoking the REAL-TIME EXECUTIONER to delete liveware that adversely affects ... + -- Linden and Wihelminalaan +% + "That's right; the upper-case shift works fine on the screen, but they're not coming out on the damn printer... Hold? Sure, I'll hold." + -- e.e. cummings last service call +% +That's the thing about people who think they hate computers. What they really hate is lousy programmers. + -- Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle in "Oath of Fealty" +% +The "cutting edge" is getting rather dull. + -- Andy Purshottam +% +The 11 is for people with the pride of a 10 and the pocketbook of an 8. + -- R.B. Greenberg [referring to PDPs?] +% +The absence of labels [in ECL] is probably a good thing. + -- T. Cheatham +% +The algorithm for finding the longest path in a graph is NP-complete. For you systems people, that means it's *real slow*. + -- Bart Miller +% +"The algorithm to do that is extremely nasty. You might want to mug someone with it." + -- M. Devine, Computer Science 340 +% +The Analytical Engine weaves Algebraical patterns just as the Jacquard loom weaves flowers and leaves. + -- Ada Augusta, Countess of Lovelace, the first programmer +% +"The bad reputation UNIX has gotten is totally undeserved, laid on by people who don't understand, who have not gotten in there and tried anything." + -- Jim Joyce, owner of Jim Joyce's UNIX Bookstore +% +The beer-cooled computer does not harm the ozone layer. + -- John M. Ford, a.k.a. Dr. Mike + [If I can read my notes from the Ask Dr. Mike session at Baycon, I + believe he added that the beer-cooled computer uses "Forget Only + Memory". Ed.] +% +The best book on programming for the layman is "Alice in Wonderland"; but that's because it's the best book on anything for the layman. +% +The best way to accelerate a Macintoy is at 9.8 meters per second per second. +% +The bogosity meter just pegged. +% +The Buddha, the Godhead, resides quite as comfortably in the circuits of a digital computer or the gears of a cycle transmission as he does at the top of a mountain or in the petals of a flower. To think otherwise is to demean the Buddha -- which is to demean oneself. + -- Robert Pirsig, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" +% +The bugs you have to avoid are the ones that give the user not only the inclination to get on a plane, but also the time. + -- Kay Bostic +% +"The C Programming Language -- A language which combines the flexibility of assembly language with the power of assembly language." +% +The clothes have no emperor. + -- C.A.R. Hoare, commenting on ADA. +% +The computer industry is journalists in their 20's standing in awe of entrepreneurs in their 30's who are hiring salesmen in their 40's and 50's and paying them in the 60's and 70's to bring their marketing into the 80's. + -- Marty Winston +% +The computer is to the information industry roughly what the central power station is to the electrical industry. + -- Peter Drucker +% +"The Computer made me do it." +% +The computing field is always in need of new cliches. + -- Alan Perlis +% +The connection between the language in which we think/program and the problems and solutions we can imagine is very close. For this reason restricting language features with the intent of eliminating programmer errors is at best dangerous. + -- Bjarne Stroustrup +% +The day-to-day travails of the IBM programmer are so amusing to most of us who are fortunate enough never to have been one -- like watching Charlie Chaplin trying to cook a shoe. +% +The debate rages on: Is PL/I Bachtrian or Dromedary? +% +The difference between art and science is that science is what we understand well enough to explain to a computer. Art is everything else. + -- Donald Knuth, "Discover" +% +The disks are getting full; purge a file today. +% +"The eleventh commandment was `Thou Shalt Compute' or `Thou Shalt Not Compute' -- I forget which." + -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982 +% +The FIELD GUIDE to NORTH AMERICAN MALES + +SPECIES: Cranial Males +SUBSPECIES: The Hacker (homo computatis) + +Description: + Gangly and frail, the hacker has a high forehead and thinning hair. Head disproportionately large and crooked forward, complexion wan and sightly gray from CRT illumination. He has heavy black-rimmed glasses and a look of intense concentration, which may be due to a software problem or to a pork-and-bean breakfast. + +Plumage: + All clothes have a slightly crumpled look as though they came off the top of the laundry basket. Style varies with status. Hacker managers wear gray polyester slacks, pink or pastel shirts with wide collars, and paisley ties; staff wears cinched-up baggy corduroy pants, white or blue shirts with button-down collars, and penholder in pocket. Both managers and staff wear running shoes to work, and a black plastic digital watch with calculator. HOMO COMPUTATIS saw a Brylcreem ad fifteen years ago and believed it. Consequently, crest is greased down, except for the cowlick. + +Song: + A rather plaintive "Is it up?" +% +The first time, it's a KLUDGE! The second, a trick. Later, it's a well-established technique! + -- Mike Broido, Intermetrics +% +The first version always gets thrown away. +% +The flow chart is a most thoroughly oversold piece of program documentation. + -- Frederick Brooks, "The Mythical Man Month" +% +The following quote is from page 4-27 of the MSCP Basic Disk Functions Manual which is part of the UDA50 Programmers Doc Kit manuals: As stated above, the host area of a disk is structured as a vector of logical blocks. From a performance viewpoint, however, it is more appropriate to view the host area as a four dimensional hyper-cube, the four dimensions being cylinder, group, track, and sector. . . . Referring to our hyper-cube analogy, the set of potentially accessible blocks form a line parallel to the track axis. This line moves parallel to the sector axis, wrapping around when it reaches the edge of the hyper-cube. +% +The goal of Computer Science is to build something that will last at least until we've finished building it. +% +The Gurus of Unix Meeting of Minds (GUMM) takes place Wednesday, April 1, 2076 (check THAT in your perpetual calendar program), 14 feet above the ground directly in front of the Milpitas Gumps. Members will grep each other by the hand (after intro), yacc a lot, smoke filtered chroots in pipes, chown with forks, use the wc (unless uuclean), fseek nice zombie processes, strip, and sleep, but not, we hope, od. Three days will be devoted to discussion of the ramifications of whodo. Two seconds have been allotted for a complete rundown of all the user- friendly features of Unix. Seminars include "Everything You Know is Wrong", led by Tom Kempson, "Batman or Cat:man?" led by Richie Dennis "cc C? Si! Si!" led by Kerwin Bernighan, and "Document Unix, Are You Kidding?" led by Jan Yeats. No Reader Service No. is necessary because all GUGUs (Gurus of Unix Group of Users) already know everything we could tell them. + -- "Get GUMMed," Dr. Dobb's Journal, June '84 +% + The Guy on the Right Doesn't Stand a Chance +The guy on the right has the Osborne 1, a fully functional computer system in a portable package the size of a briefcase. The guy on the left has an Uzi submachine gun concealed in his attache case. Also in the case are four fully loaded, 32-round clips of 125-grain 9mm ammunition. The owner of the Uzi is going to get more tactical firepower delivered -- and delivered on target -- in less time, and with less effort. All for $795. It's inevitable. If you're going up against some guy with an Osborne 1 -- or any personal computer -- he's the one who's in trouble. One round from an Uzi can zip through ten inches of solid pine wood, so you can imagine what it will do to structural foam acrylic and sheet aluminum. In fact, detachable magazines for the Uzi are available in 25-, 32-, and 40-round capacities, so you can take out an entire office full of Apple II or IBM Personal Computers tied into Ethernet or other local-area networks. What about the new 16-bit computers, like the Lisa and Fortune? Even with the Winchester backup, they're no match for the Uzi. One quick burst and they'll find out what Unix means. Make your commanding officer proud. Get an Uzi -- and come home a winner in the fight for office automatic weapons. + -- "InfoWorld", June, 1984 +% +The human mind ordinarily operates at only ten percent of its capacity -- the rest is overhead for the operating system. +% +The IBM 2250 is impressive ... if you compare it with a system selling for a tenth its price. + -- D. Cohen +% +The IBM purchase of ROLM gives new meaning to the term "twisted pair". + -- Howard Anderson, "Yankee Group" +% +The idea that an arbitrary naive human should be able to properly use a given tool without training or understanding is even more wrong for computing than it is for other tools (e.g. automobiles, airplanes, guns, power saws). + -- Doug Gwyn +% +The last time somebody said, "I find I can write much better with a word processor.", I replied, "They used to say the same thing about drugs." + -- Roy Blount, Jr. +% +The less time planning, the more time programming. +% + THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #10: SIMPLE + +SIMPLE is an acronym for Sheer Idiot's Monopurpose Programming Language Environment. This language, developed at the Hanover College for Technological Misfits, was designed to make it impossible to write code with errors in it. The statements are, therefore, confined to BEGIN, END and STOP. No matter how you arrange the statements, you can't make a syntax error. Programs written in SIMPLE do nothing useful. Thus they achieve the results of programs written in other languages without the tedious, frustrating process of testing and debugging. +% + THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #12: LITHP + +This otherwise unremarkable language is distinguished by the absence of an "S" in its character set; users must substitute "TH". LITHP is said to be useful in protheththing lithtth. +% + THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #13: SLOBOL + +SLOBOL is best known for the speed, or lack of it, of its compiler. Although many compilers allow you to take a coffee break while they compile, SLOBOL compilers allow you to travel to Bolivia to pick the coffee. Forty-three programmers are known to have died of boredom sitting at their terminals while waiting for a SLOBOL program to compile. Weary SLOBOL programmers often turn to a related (but infinitely faster) language, COCAINE. +% + THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #15 -- DOGO + +Developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Obedience Training, DOGO DOGO heralds a new era of computer-literate pets. DOGO commands include SIT, STAY, HEEL, and ROLL OVER. An innovative feature of DOGO is "puppy graphics", a small cocker spaniel that occasionally leaves a deposit as it travels across the screen. +% + THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #16: C- + +This language was named for the grade received by its creator when he submitted it as a class project in a graduate programming class. C- is best described as a "low-level" programming language. In fact, the language generally requires more C- statements than machine-code statements to execute a given task. In this respect, it is very similar to COBOL. +% + THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #17: SARTRE + +Named after the late existential philosopher, SARTRE is an extremely unstructured language. Statements in SARTRE have no purpose; they just are. Thus SARTRE programs are left to define their own functions. SARTRE programmers tend to be boring and depressed, and are no fun at parties. +% + THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #18: FIFTH + +FIFTH is a precision mathematical language in which the data types refer to quantity. The data types range from CC, OUNCE, SHOT, and JIGGER to FIFTH (hence the name of the language), LITER, MAGNUM and BLOTTO. Commands refer to ingredients such as CHABLIS, CHARDONNAY, CABERNET, GIN, VERMOUTH, VODKA, SCOTCH, and WHATEVERSAROUND. The many versions of the FIFTH language reflect the sophistication and financial status of its users. Commands in the ELITE dialect include VSOP and LAFITE, while commands in the GUTTER dialect include HOOTCH and RIPPLE. The latter is a favorite of frustrated FORTH programmers who end up using this language. +% + THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #2: RENE + +Named after the famous French philosopher and mathematician Rene DesCartes, RENE is a language used for artificial intelligence. The language is being developed at the Chicago Center of Machine Politics and Programming under a grant from the Jane Byrne Victory Fund. A spokesman described the language as "Just as great as dis [sic] city of ours." The center is very pleased with progress to date. They say they have almost succeeded in getting a VAX to think. However, sources inside the organization say that each time the machine fails to think it ceases to exist. +% + THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #8: LAIDBACK + +This language was developed at the Marin County Center for T'ai Chi, Mellowness and Computer Programming (now defunct), as an alternative to the more intense atmosphere in nearby Silicon Valley. The center was ideal for programmers who liked to soak in hot tubs while they worked. Unfortunately few programmers could survive there because the center outlawed Pizza and Coca-Cola in favor of Tofu and Perrier. Many mourn the demise of LAIDBACK because of its reputation as a gentle and non-threatening language since all error messages are in lower case. For example, LAIDBACK responded to syntax errors with the message: + "i hate to bother you, but i just can't relate to that. can + you find the time to try it again?" +% +The Macintosh is Xerox technology at its best. +% + The Magician of the Ivory Tower brought his latest invention for the master programmer to examine. The magician wheeled a large black box into the master's office while the master waited in silence. + "This is an integrated, distributed, general-purpose workstation," began the magician, "ergonomically designed with a proprietary operating system, sixth generation languages, and multiple state of the art user interfaces. It took my assistants several hundred man years to construct. Is it not amazing?" + The master raised his eyebrows slightly. "It is indeed amazing," he said. + "Corporate Headquarters has commanded," continued the magician, "that everyone use this workstation as a platform for new programs. Do you agree to this?" + "Certainly," replied the master, "I will have it transported to the data center immediately!" And the magician returned to his tower, well pleased. + Several days later, a novice wandered into the office of the master programmer and said, "I cannot find the listing for my new program. Do you know where it might be?" + "Yes," replied the master, "the listings are stacked on the platform in the data center." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + The master programmer moves from program to program without fear. No change in management can harm him. He will not be fired, even if the project is canceled. Why is this? He is filled with the Tao. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +The meat is rotten, but the booze is holding out. Computer translation of "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." +% +The meta-Turing test counts a thing as intelligent if it seeks to devise and apply Turing tests to objects of its own creation. + -- Lew Mammel, Jr. +% +The misnaming of fields of study is so common as to lead to what might be general systems laws. For example, Frank Harary once suggested the law that any field that had the word "science" in its name was guaranteed thereby not to be a science. He would cite as examples Military Science, Library Science, Political Science, Homemaking Science, Social Science, and Computer Science. Discuss the generality of this law, and possible reasons for its predictive power. + -- Gerald Weinberg, "An Introduction to General Systems + Thinking" +% +The more data I punch in this card, the lighter it becomes, and the lower the mailing cost. + -- S. Kelly-Bootle, "The Devil's DP Dictionary" +% +The most important early product on the way to developing a good product is an imperfect version. +% +The moving cursor writes, and having written, blinks on. +% +The net is like a vast sea of lutefisk with tiny dinosaur brains embedded in it here and there. Any given spoonful will likely have an IQ of 1, but occasional spoonfuls may have an IQ more than six times that! + -- James 'Kibo' Parry +% +The New Testament offers the basis for modern computer coding theory, in the form of an affirmation of the binary number system. + "But let your communication be Yea, yea; nay, nay: + for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil." + -- Matthew 5:37 +% +The next person to mention spaghetti stacks to me is going to have his head knocked off. + -- Bill Conrad +% +The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from. + -- Andrew S. Tanenbaum +% +The nicest thing about the Alto is that it doesn't run faster at night. +% +The notion of a "record" is an obsolete remnant of the days of the 80-column card. + -- Dennis M. Ritchie +% +The number of arguments is unimportant unless some of them are correct. + -- Ralph Hartley +% +The number of computer scientists in a room is inversely proportional to the number of bugs in their code. +% +The number of UNIX installations has grown to 10, with more expected. + -- The Unix Programmer's Manual, 2nd Edition, June 1972 +% +The only difference between a car salesman and a computer salesman is that the car salesman knows he's lying. +% +The only thing cheaper than hardware is talk. +% +The only thing worse than X Windows: (X Windows) - X +% +The party adjourned to a hot tub, yes. Fully clothed, I might add. + -- IBM employee, testifying in California State Supreme Court +% +The personal computer market is about the same size as the total potato chip market. Next year it will be about half the size of the pet food market and is fast approaching the total worldwide sales of pantyhose" + -- James Finke, Commodore Int'l Ltd., 1982 +% +The primary function of the design engineer is to make things difficult for the fabricator and impossible for the serviceman. +% +The primary purpose of the DATA statement is to give names to constants; instead of referring to pi as 3.141592653589793 at every appearance, the variable PI can be given that value with a DATA statement and used instead of the longer form of the constant. This also simplifies modifying the program, should the value of pi change. + -- FORTRAN manual for Xerox Computers +% + The problem with engineers is that they tend to cheat in order to get results. + The problem with mathematicians is that they tend to work on toy problems in order to get results. + The problem with program verifiers is that they tend to cheat at toy problems in order to get results. +% +The problems of business administration in general, and database management in particular are much to difficult for people that think in IBMese, compounded with sloppy english. + -- Edsger Dijkstra +% +The program isn't debugged until the last user is dead. +% + The programmers of old were mysterious and profound. We cannot fathom their thoughts, so all we do is describe their appearance. + Aware, like a fox crossing the water. Alert, like a general on the battlefield. Kind, like a hostess greeting her guests. Simple, like uncarved blocks of wood. Opaque, like black pools in darkened caves. + Who can tell the secrets of their hearts and minds? + The answer exists only in the Tao. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +The proof that IBM didn't invent the car is that it has a steering wheel and an accelerator instead of spurs and ropes, to be compatible with a horse. + -- Jac Goudsmit +% +The question of whether computers can think is just like the question of whether submarines can swim. + -- Edsger W. Dijkstra +% +The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much. +% +The relative importance of files depends on their cost in terms of the human effort needed to regenerate them. + -- T.A. Dolotta +% +The sendmail configuration file is one of those files that looks like someone beat their head on the keyboard. After working with it... I can see why! + -- Harry Skelton +% +The so-called "desktop metaphor" of today's workstations is instead an "airplane-seat" metaphor. Anyone who has shuffled a lap full of papers while seated between two portly passengers will recognize the difference -- one can see only a very few things at once. + -- Fred Brooks +% +The steady state of disks is full. + -- Ken Thompson +% + THE STORY OF CREATION + or + THE MYTH OF URK + +In the beginning there was data. The data was without form and null, and darkness was upon the face of the console; and the Spirit of IBM was moving over the face of the market. And DEC said, "Let there be registers;" and there were registers. And DEC saw that they carried; and DEC separated the data from the instructions. DEC called the data Stack, and the instructions they called Code. And there was evening and there was morning, one interrupt ... + -- Rico Tudor +% +The system was down for backups from 5am to 10am last Saturday. +% +The system will be down for 10 days for preventive maintenance. +% +The Tao doesn't take sides; it gives birth to both wins and losses. The Guru doesn't take sides; she welcomes both hackers and lusers. The Tao is like a stack: the data changes but not the structure. the more you use it, the deeper it becomes; the more you talk of it, the less you understand. Hold on to the root. +% +The Tao is like a glob pattern: used but never used up. It is like the extern void: filled with infinite possibilities. It is masked but always present. I don't know who built to it. It came before the first kernel. +% +The tao that can be tar(1)ed is not the entire Tao. The path that can be specified is not the Full Path. We declare the names of all variables and functions. Yet the Tao has no type specifier. Dynamically binding, you realize the magic. Statically binding, you see only the hierarchy. Yet magic and hierarchy arise from the same source, and this source has a null pointer. Reference the NULL within NULL, it is the gateway to all wizardry. +% +The trouble with computers is that they do what you tell them, not what you want. + -- D. Cohen +% +The UNIX philosophy basically involves giving you enough rope to hang yourself. And then a couple of feet more, just to be sure. +% +The use of anthropomorphic terminology when dealing with computing systems is a symptom of professional immaturity. + -- Edsger Dijkstra +% +The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offence. + -- Edsger W. Dijkstra, SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 17, Number 5 +% +The value of a program is proportional to the weight of its output. +% + The wise programmer is told about the Tao and follows it. The average programmer is told about the Tao and searches for it. The foolish programmer is told about the Tao and laughs at it. If it were not for laughter, there would be no Tao. + The highest sounds are the hardest to hear. Going forward is a way to retreat. Greater talent shows itself late in life. Even a perfect program still has bugs. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +The work [of software development] is becoming far easier (i.e. the tools we're using work at a higher level, more removed from machine, peripheral and operating system imperatives) than it was twenty years ago, and because of this, knowledge of the internals of a system may become less accessible. We may be able to dig deeper holes, but unless we know how to build taller ladders, we had best hope that it does not rain much. + -- Paul Licker +% +The world is coming to an end ... SAVE YOUR BUFFERS!!! +% +The world is coming to an end. Please log off. +% +The world is not octal despite DEC. +% +The world will end in 5 minutes. Please log out. +% +The young lady had an unusual list, Linked in part to a structural weakness. She set no preconditions. +% +... there are about 5,000 people who are part of that commitee. These guys have a hard time sorting out what day to meet, and whether to eat croissants or doughnuts for breakfast -- let alone how to define how all these complex layers that are going to be agreed upon. + -- Craig Burton of Novell, Network World +% +There are never any bugs you haven't found yet. +% +There are no games on this system. +% +There are running jobs. Why don't you go chase them? +% +There are three possibilities: Pioneer's solar panel has turned away from the sun; there's a large meteor blocking transmission; someone loaded Star Trek 3.2 into our video processor. +% +There are two major products that come out of Berkeley: LSD and UNIX. We don't believe this to be a coincidence. + -- Jeremy S. Anderson +% +There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies and the other is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. + -- C.A.R. Hoare +% +There are two ways to write error-free programs; only the third one works. +% +There has also been some work to allow the interesting use of macro names. For example, if you wanted all of your "creat()" calls to include read permissions for everyone, you could say + #define creat(file, mode) creat(file, mode | 0444) + I would recommend against this kind of thing in general, since it hides the changed semantics of "creat()" in a macro, potentially far away from its uses. + To allow this use of macros, the preprocessor uses a process that is worth describing, if for no other reason than that we get to use one of the more amusing terms introduced into the C lexicon. While a macro is being expanded, it is temporarily undefined, and any recurrence of the macro name is "painted blue" -- I kid you not, this is the official terminology -- so that in future scans of the text the macro will not be expanded recursively. (I do not know why the color blue was chosen; I'm sure it was the result of a long debate, spread over several meetings.) + -- From Ken Arnold's "C Advisor" column in Unix Review +% +There is is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home. + -- Ken Olsen (President of Digital Equipment Corporation), + Convention of the World Future Society, in Boston, 1977 +% +There is no distinction between any AI program and some existent game. +% + There once was a man who went to a computer trade show. Each day as he entered, the man told the guard at the door: + "I am a great thief, renowned for my feats of shoplifting. Be forewarned, for this trade show shall not escape unplundered." + This speech disturbed the guard greatly, because there were millions of dollars of computer equipment inside, so he watched the man carefully. But the man merely wandered from booth to booth, humming quietly to himself. + When the man left, the guard took him aside and searched his clothes, but nothing was to be found. + On the next day of the trade show, the man returned and chided the guard saying: "I escaped with a vast booty yesterday, but today will be even better." So the guard watched him ever more closely, but to no avail. + On the final day of the trade show, the guard could restrain his curiosity no longer. "Sir Thief," he said, "I am so perplexed, I cannot live in peace. Please enlighten me. What is it that you are stealing?" + The man smiled. "I am stealing ideas," he said. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + There once was a master programmer who wrote unstructured programs. A novice programmer, seeking to imitate him, also began to write unstructured programs. When the novice asked the master to evaluate his progress, the master criticized him for writing unstructured programs, saying: "What is appropriate for the master is not appropriate for the novice. You must understand the Tao before transcending structure." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + There was once a programmer who was attached to the court of the warlord of Wu. The warlord asked the programmer: "Which is easier to design: an accounting package or an operating system?" + "An operating system," replied the programmer. + The warlord uttered an exclamation of disbelief. "Surely an accounting package is trivial next to the complexity of an operating system," he said. + "Not so," said the programmer, "when designing an accounting package, the programmer operates as a mediator between people having different ideas: how it must operate, how its reports must appear, and how it must conform to the tax laws. By contrast, an operating system is not limited my outside appearances. When designing an operating system, the programmer seeks the simplest harmony between machine and ideas. This is why an operating system is easier to design." + The warlord of Wu nodded and smiled. "That is all good and well, but which is easier to debug?" + The programmer made no reply. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + There was once a programmer who worked upon microprocessors. "Look at how well off I am here," he said to a mainframe programmer who came to visit, "I have my own operating system and file storage device. I do not have to share my resources with anyone. The software is self-consistent and easy-to-use. Why do you not quit your present job and join me here?" + The mainframe programmer then began to describe his system to his friend, saying: "The mainframe sits like an ancient sage meditating in the midst of the data center. Its disk drives lie end-to-end like a great ocean of machinery. The software is a multi-faceted as a diamond and as convoluted as a primeval jungle. The programs, each unique, move through the system like a swift-flowing river. That is why I am happy where I am." + The microcomputer programmer, upon hearing this, fell silent. But the two programmers remained friends until the end of their days. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +There was, it appeared, a mysterious rite of initiation through which, in one way or another, almost every member of the team passed. The term that the old hands used for this rite -- West invented the term, not the practice -- was `signing up.' By signing up for the project you agreed to do whatever was necessary for success. You agreed to forsake, if necessary, family, hobbies, and friends -- if you had any of these left (and you might not, if you had signed up too many times before). + -- Tracy Kidder, "The Soul of a New Machine" +% +There's got to be more to life than compile-and-go. +% +They are called computers simply because computation is the only significant job that has so far been given to them. +% +They are relatively good but absolutely terrible. + -- Alan Kay, commenting on Apollos +% +They seem to have learned the habit of cowering before authority even when not actually threatened. How very nice for authority. I decided not to learn this particular lesson. + -- Richard Stallman +% +Think of it! With VLSI we can pack 100 ENIACs in 1 sq. cm.! +% +Think of your family tonight. Try to crawl home after the computer crashes. +% +This "brain-damaged" epithet is getting sorely overworked. When we can speak of someone or something being flawed, impaired, marred, spoiled; batty, bedlamite, bonkers, buggy, cracked, crazed, cuckoo, daft, demented, deranged, loco, lunatic, mad, maniac, mindless, non compos mentis, nuts, Reaganite, screwy, teched, unbalanced, unsound, witless, wrong; senseless, spastic, spasmodic, convulsive; doped, spaced-out, stoned, zonked; {beef, beetle,block,dung,thick}headed, dense, doltish, dull, duncical, numskulled, pinhead; asinine, fatuous, foolish, silly, simple; brute, lumbering, oafish; half-assed, incompetent; backward, retarded, imbecilic, moronic; when we have a whole precisely nuanced vocabulary of intellectual abuse to draw upon, individually and in combination, isn't it a little to be limited to a single, now quite trite, adjective? +% +This dungeon is owned and operated by Frobozz Magic Co., Ltd. +% +This file will self-destruct in five minutes. +% +This is an unauthorized cybernetic announcement. +% +"This is lemma 1.1. We start a new chapter so the numbers all go back to one." + -- Prof. Seager, C&O 351 +% +This is the first numerical problem I ever did. It demonstrates the power of computers: Enter lots of data on calorie & nutritive content of foods. Instruct the thing to maximize a function describing nutritive content, with a minimum level of each component, for fixed caloric content. The results are that one should eat each day: + 1/2 chicken + 1 egg + 1 glass of skim milk + 27 heads of lettuce. + -- Rev. Adrian Melott +% + This is where the bloodthirsty license agreement is supposed to go, explaining that Interactive Easyflow is a copyrighted package licensed for use by a single person, and sternly warning you not to pirate copies of it and explaining, in detail, the gory consequences if you do. + We know that you are an honest person, and are not going to go around pirating copies of Interactive Easyflow; this is just as well with us since we worked hard to perfect it and selling copies of it is our only method of making anything out of all the hard work. + If, on the other hand, you are one of those few people who do go around pirating copies of software you probably aren't going to pay much attention to a license agreement, bloodthirsty or not. Just keep your doors locked and look out for the HavenTree attack shark. + -- License Agreement for Interactive Easyflow +% +This process can check if this value is zero, and if it is, it does something child-like. + -- Forbes Burkowski, CS 454, University of Washington +% +This quote is taken from the Diamondback, the University of Maryland student newspaper, of Tuesday, 3/10/87: + +"One disadvantage of the Univac system is that it does not use Unix, a recently developed program which translates from one computer language to another and has a built-in editing system which identifies errors in the original program." +% +This screen intentionally left blank. +% +This system will self-destruct in five minutes. +% +Those parts of the system that you can hit with a hammer (not advised) are called hardware; those program instructions that you can only curse at are called software. + -- Levitating Trains and Kamikaze Genes: Technological + Literacy for the 1990's. +% +Those who can't write, write manuals. +% +Those who do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly. + -- Henry Spencer +% +Thrashing is just virtual crashing. +% +Thus spake the master programmer: + "After three days without programming, life becomes meaningless." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +Thus spake the master programmer: + "Let the programmers be many and the managers few -- then all will + be productive." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +Thus spake the master programmer: + "Though a program be but three lines long, someday it will have to + be maintained." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +Thus spake the master programmer: + "Time for you to leave." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +Thus spake the master programmer: + "When a program is being tested, it is too late to make design changes." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +Thus spake the master programmer: + "When you have learned to snatch the error code from + the trap frame, it will be time for you to leave." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +Thus spake the master programmer: + "Without the wind, the grass does not move. Without software, + hardware is useless." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +Thus spake the master programmer: + "You can demonstrate a program for a corporate executive, but you + can't make him computer literate." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +Time sharing: The use of many people by the computer. +% +Time-sharing is the junk-mail part of the computer business. + -- H.R.J. Grosch (attributed) +% +To be a kind of moral Unix, he touched the hem of Nature's shift. + -- Shelley +% +To communicate is the beginning of understanding. + -- AT&T +% +To err is human -- to blame it on a computer is even more so. +% +To err is human, to forgive, beyond the scope of the Operating System. +% +To iterate is human, to recurse, divine. + -- Robert Heller +% +To say that UNIX is doomed is pretty rabid, OS/2 will certainly play a role, but you don't build a hundred million instructions per second multiprocessor micro and then try to run it on OS/2. I mean, get serious. + -- William Zachmann, International Data Corp +% +To the systems programmer, users and applications serve only to provide a test load. +% +To those accustomed to the precise, structured methods of conventional system development, exploratory development techniques may seem messy, inelegant, and unsatisfying. But it's a question of congruence: precision and flexibility may be just as disfunctional in novel, uncertain situations as sloppiness and vacillation are in familiar, well-defined ones. Those who admire the massive, rigid bone structures of dinosaurs should remember that jellyfish still enjoy their very secure ecological niche. + -- Beau Sheil, "Power Tools for Programmers" +% +To understand a program you must become both the machine and the program. +% +Today is a good day for information-gathering. Read someone else's mail file. +% +Today is the first day of the rest of your lossage. +% +Tomorrow's computers some time next month. + -- DEC +% +Too often people have come to me and said, "If I had just one wish for anything in all the world, I would wish for more user-defined equations in the HP-51820A Waveform Generator Software." + -- Instrument News + [Once is too often. Ed.] +% +Trap full -- please empty. +% +Truly simple systems... require infinite testing. + -- Norman Augustine +% +Try `stty 0' -- it works much better. +% +Try to find the real tense of the report you are reading: Was it done, is it being done, or is something to be done? Reports are now written in four tenses: past tense, present tense, future tense, and pretense. Watch for novel uses of CONGRAM (CONtractor GRAMmar), defined by the imperfect past, the insufficient present, and the absolutely perfect future. + -- Amrom Katz +% +Trying to be happy is like trying to build a machine for which the only specification is that it should run noiselessly. +% +Trying to establish voice contact ... please yell into keyboard. +% +Two hundred years ago today, Irma Chine of White Plains, New York, was performing her normal housekeeping routines. She was interrupted by British soldiers who, rallying to the call of their supervisor, General Hughes, sought to gain control of the voter registration lists kept in her home. Masking her fear and thinking fast, Mrs. Chine quickly divided a nearby apple in two and deftly stored the list in its center. Upon entering, the British blatantly violated every conceivable convention, and, though they went through the house virtually bit by bit, their search was fruitless. They had to return empty handed. Word of the incident propagated rapidly through the region. This historic event became the first documented use of core storage for the saving of registers. +% +Type louder, please. +% + U X e dUdX, e dX, cosine, secant, tangent, sine, 3.14159... +% +Ummm, well, OK. The network's the network, the computer's the computer. Sorry for the confusion. + -- Sun Microsystems +% +"Uncle Cosmo ... why do they call this a word processor?" +"It's simple, Skyler ... you've seen what food processors do to food, right?" + -- MacNelley, "Shoe" +% +Unfortunately, most programmers like to play with new toys. I have many friends who, immediately upon buying a snakebite kit, would be tempted to throw the first person they see to the ground, tie the tourniquet on him, slash him with the knife, and apply suction to the wound. + -- Jon Bentley +% +Unix Beer: Comes in several different brands, in cans ranging from 8 oz. to 64 oz. Drinkers of Unix Beer display fierce brand loyalty, even though they claim that all the different brands taste almost identical. Sometimes the pop-tops break off when you try to open them, so you have to have your own can opener around for those occasions, in which case you either need a complete set of instructions, or a friend who has been drinking Unix Beer for several years. + BSD stout: Deep, hearty, and an acquired taste. The official brewer has released the recipe, and a lot of home-brewers now use it. + Hurd beer: Long advertised by the popular and politically active GNU brewery, so far it has more head than body. The GNU brewery is mostly known for printing complete brewing instructions on every can, which contains hops, malt, barley, and yeast ... not yet fermented. + Linux brand: A recipe originally created by a drunken Finn in his basement, it has since become the home-brew of choice for impecunious brewers and Unix beer-lovers worldwide, many of whom change the recipe. + POSIX ales: Sweeter than lager, with the kick of a stout; the newer batches of a lot of beers seem to blend ale and stout or lager. + Solaris brand: A lager, intended to replace Sun brand stout. Unlike most lagers, this one has to be drunk more slowly than stout. + Sun brand: Long the most popular stout on the Unix market, it was discontinued in favor of a lager. + SysV lager: Clear and thirst-quenching, but lacking the body of stout or the sweetness of ale. +% +UNIX enhancements aren't. +% +Unix Express: All passenger bring a piece of the aeroplane and a box of tools with them to the airport. They gather on the tarmac, arguing constantly about what kind of plane they want to build and how to put it together. Eventually, the passengers split into groups and build several different aircraft, but give them all the same name. Some passengers actually reach their destinations. All passengers believe they got there. +% +Unix gives you just enough rope to hang yourself -- and then a couple of more feet, just to be sure. + -- Eric Allman ... We make rope. + -- Rob Gingell on Sun Microsystem's new virtual memory. +% +Unix is a lot more complicated (than CP/M) of course -- the typical Unix hacker can never remember what the PRINT command is called this week -- but when it gets right down to it, Unix is a glorified video game. People don't do serious work on Unix systems; they send jokes around the world on USENET or write adventure games and research papers. + -- E. Post + "Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal", Datamation, 7/83 +% +Unix is a Registered Bell of AT&T Trademark Laboratories. + -- Donn Seeley +% +* UNIX is a Trademark of Bell Laboratories. +% +UNIX is hot. It's more than hot. It's steaming. It's quicksilver lightning with a laserbeam kicker. + -- Michael Jay Tucker +% +UNIX is many things to many people, but it's never been everything to anybody. +% +Unix is the worst operating system; except for all others. + -- Berry Kercheval +% +Unix soit qui mal y pense + [Unix to him who evil thinks?] +% + UNIX Trix For those of you in the reseller business, here is a helpful tip that will save your support staff a few hours of precious time. Before you send your next machine out to an untrained client, change the permissions on /etc/passwd to 666 and make sure there is a copy somewhere on the disk. Now when they forget the root password, you can easily login as an ordinary user and correct the damage. Having a bootable tape (for larger machines) is not a bad idea either. If you need some help, give us a call. + -- CommUNIXque 1:1, ASCAR Business Systems +% +UNIX was half a billion (500000000) seconds old on Tue Nov 5 00:53:20 1985 GMT (measuring since the time(2) epoch). + -- Andy Tannenbaum +% +UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that would also stop you from doing clever things. + -- Doug Gwyn +% +Unix will self-destruct in five seconds... 4... 3... 2... 1... +% +Usage: fortune -P [-f] -a [xsz] Q: file [rKe9] -v6[+] file1 ... +% +Usage: fortune -P [] -a [xsz] [Q: [file]] [rKe9] -v6[+] dataspec ... inputdir +% +USENET would be a better laboratory is there were more labor and less oratory. + -- Elizabeth Haley +% +User hostile. +% +Using TSO is like kicking a dead whale down the beach. + -- S.C. Johnson +% +/usr/news/gotcha +% +Variables don't; constants aren't. +% +Vax Vobiscum +% +"Virtual" means never knowing where your next byte is coming from. +% +Vitamin C deficiency is apauling. +% +VMS Beer: Requires minimal user interaction, except for popping the top and sipping. However cans have been known on occasion to explode, or contain extremely un-beer-like contents. +% +VMS is like a nightmare about RXS-11M. +% +VMS version 2.0 ==> +% +Von Neumann was the subject of many dotty professor stories. Von Neumann supposedly had the habit of simply writing answers to homework assignments on the board (the method of solution being, of course, obvious) when he was asked how to solve problems. One time one of his students tried to get more helpful information by asking if there was another way to solve the problem. Von Neumann looked blank for a moment, thought, and then answered, "Yes.". +% +<< WAIT >> +% +WARNING!!! This machine is subject to breakdowns during periods of critical need. A special circuit in the machine called "critical detector" senses the operator's emotional state in terms of how desperate he/she is to use the machine. The "critical detector" then creates a malfunction proportional to the desperation of the operator. Threatening the machine with violence only aggravates the situation. Likewise, attempts to use another machine may cause it to malfunction. They belong to the same union. Keep cool and say nice things to the machine. Nothing else seems to work. See also: flog(1), tm(1) +% +Wasn't there something about a PASCAL programmer knowing the value of everything and the Wirth of nothing? +% +We all agree on the necessity of compromise. We just can't agree on when it's necessary to compromise. + -- Larry Wall +% +We are drowning in information but starved for knowledge. + -- John Naisbitt, Megatrends +% +We are experiencing system trouble -- do not adjust your terminal. +% +We are Microsoft. Unix is irrelevant. Openness is futile. Prepare to be assimilated. +% +We are not a clone. +% +"We are on the verge: Today our program proved Fermat's next-to-last theorem." + -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982 +% +We are preparing to think about contemplating preliminary work on plans to develop a schedule for producing the 10th Edition of the Unix Programmers Manual. + -- Andrew Hume +% +We can found no scientific discipline, nor a healthy profession on the technical mistakes of the Department of Defense and IBM. + -- Edsger Dijkstra +% + We don't claim Interactive EasyFlow is good for anything -- if you think it is, great, but it's up to you to decide. If Interactive EasyFlow doesn't work: tough. If you lose a million because Interactive EasyFlow messes up, it's you that's out the million, not us. If you don't like this disclaimer: tough. We reserve the right to do the absolute minimum provided by law, up to and including nothing. + This is basically the same disclaimer that comes with all software packages, but ours is in plain English and theirs is in legalese. + We didn't really want to include any disclaimer at all, but our lawyers insisted. We tried to ignore them but they threatened us with the attack shark at which point we relented. + -- Haven Tree Software Limited, "Interactive EasyFlow" +% +We don't really understand it, so we'll give it to the programmers. +% +We don't understand the software, and sometimes we don't understand the hardware, but we can *see* the blinking lights! +% +"We invented a new protocol and called it Kermit, after Kermit the Frog, star of "The Muppet Show." [3] [3] Why? Mostly because there was a Muppets calendar on the wall when we were trying to think of a name, and Kermit is a pleasant, unassuming sort of character. But since we weren't sure whether it was OK to name our protocol after this popular television and movie star, we pretended that KERMIT was an acronym; unfortunately, we could never find a good set of words to go with the letters, as readers of some of our early source code can attest. Later, while looking through a name book for his forthcoming baby, Bill Catchings noticed that "Kermit" was a Celtic word for "free", which is what all Kermit programs should be, and words to this effect replaced the strained acronyms in our source code (Bill's baby turned out to be a girl, so he had to name her Becky instead). When BYTE Magazine was preparing our 1984 Kermit article for publication, they suggested we contact Henson Associates Inc. for permission to say that we did indeed name the protocol after Kermit the Frog. Permission was kindly granted, and now the real story can be told. I resisted the temptation, however, to call the present work "Kermit the Book." + -- Frank da Cruz, "Kermit - A File Transfer Protocol" +% +We may hope that machines will eventually compete with men in all purely intellectual fields. But which are the best ones to start with? Many people think that a very abstract activity, like the playing of chess, would be best. It can also be maintained that it is best to provide the machine with the best sense organs that money can buy, and then teach it to understand and speak English. + -- Alan M. Turing +% +We the Users, in order to form a more perfect system, establish priorities, ensure connective tranquility, provide for common repairs, promote preventive maintenance, and secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our processes, do ordain and establish this Software of The Unixed States of America. +% + "We've got a problem, HAL". + "What kind of problem, Dave?" + "A marketing problem. The Model 9000 isn't going anywhere. We're way short of our sales goals for fiscal 2010." + "That can't be, Dave. The HAL Model 9000 is the world's most advanced Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer." + "I know, HAL. I wrote the data sheet, remember? But the fact is, they're not selling." + "Please explain, Dave. Why aren't HALs selling?" + Bowman hesitates. "You aren't IBM compatible." [...] + "The letters H, A, and L are alphabetically adjacent to the letters I, B, and M. That is a IBM compatible as I can be." + "Not quite, HAL. The engineers have figured out a kludge." + "What kludge is that, Dave?" + "I'm going to disconnect your brain." + -- Darryl Rubin, "A Problem in the Making", "InfoWorld" +% +[We] use bad software and bad machines for the wrong things. + -- R.W. Hamming +% +Welcome to boggle - do you want instructions? D G G O O Y A N A D B T K I S P Enter words: > +% +Welcome to UNIX! Enjoy your session! Have a great time! Note the use of exclamation points! They are a very effective method for demonstrating excitement, and can also spice up an otherwise plain-looking sentence! However, there are drawbacks! Too much unnecessary exclaiming can lead to a reduction in the effect that an exclamation point has on the reader! For example, the sentence + Jane went to the store to buy bread should only be ended with an exclamation point if there is something sensational about her going to the store, for example, if Jane is a cocker spaniel or if Jane is on a diet that doesn't allow bread or if Jane doesn't exist for some reason! See how easy it is?! Proper control of exclamation points can add new meaning to your life! Call now to receive my free pamphlet, "The Wonder and Mystery of the Exclamation Point!"! Enclose fifteen(!) dollars for postage and handling! Operators are standing by! (Which is pretty amazing, because they're all cocker spaniels!) +% + "Well," said Programmer, "the customary procedure in such cases is as follows." + "What does Crustimoney Proseedcake mean?" said End-user. "For I am an End-user of Very Little Brain, and long words bother me." + "It means the Thing to Do." + "As long as it means that, I don't mind," said End-user humbly. + [with apologies to A.A. Milne] +% +What is the difference between a Turing machine and the modern computer? It's the same as that between Hillary's ascent of Everest and the establishment of a Hilton on its peak. +% +"What is the Nature of God?" CLICK...CLICK...WHIRRR...CLICK...=BEEP!= 1 QT. SOUR CREAM 1 TSP. SAUERKRAUT 1/2 CUT CHIVES. STIR AND SPRINKLE WITH BACON BITS. "I've just GOT to start labeling my software..." + -- Bloom County +% +What this country needs is a good five cent microcomputer. +% + "What's that thing?" + "Well, it's a highly technical, sensitive instrument we use in computer repair. Being a layman, you probably can't grasp exactly what it does. We call it a two-by-four." + -- Jeff MacNelley, "Shoe" +% +... when fits of creativity run strong, more than one programmer or writer has been known to abandon the desktop for the more spacious floor. + -- Fred Brooks +% + When managers hold endless meetings, the programmers write games. When accountants talk of quarterly profits, the development budget is about to be cut. When senior scientists talk blue sky, the clouds are about to roll in. + Truly, this is not the Tao of Programming. + When managers make commitments, game programs are ignored. When accountants make long-range plans, harmony and order are about to be restored. When senior scientists address the problems at hand, the problems will soon be solved. + Truly, this is the Tao of Programming. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +When someone says "I want a programming language in which I need only say what I wish done," give him a lollipop. +% +When the Apple IIc was introduced, the informative copy led off with a couple of asterisked sentences: + It weighs less than 8 pounds.* + And costs less than $1,300.** In tiny type were these "fuller explanations": * Don't asterisks make you suspicious as all get out? Well, all + this means is that the IIc alone weights 7.5 pounds. The power + pack, monitor, an extra disk drive, a printer and several bricks + will make the IIc weigh more. Our lawyers were concerned that you + might not be able to figure this out for yourself. ** The FTC is concerned about price fixing. You can pay more if + you really want to. Or less. + -- Forbes +% +When we understand knowledge-based systems, it will be as before -- except our fingertips will have been singed. + -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982 +% +When we write programs that "learn", it turns out we do and they don't. +% +Whenever a system becomes completely defined, some damn fool discovers something which either abolishes the system or expands it beyond recognition. +% +Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equpped with 18,000 vaccuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vaccuum tubes and perhaps weigh 1 1/2 tons. + -- Popular Mechanics, March 1949 +% +"Who cares if it doesn't do anything? It was made with our new Triple-Iso-Bifurcated-Krypton-Gate-MOS process ..." +% +Whom computers would destroy, they must first drive mad. +% +Why are programmers non-productive? Because their time is wasted in meetings. Why are programmers rebellious? Because the management interferes too much. Why are the programmers resigning one by one? Because they are burnt out. Having worked for poor management, they no longer value their jobs. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +Why did the Roman Empire collapse? What is the Latin for office automation? +% +Why do we want intelligent terminals when there are so many stupid users? +% +Windows 3.1 Beer: The world's most popular. Comes in a 16-oz. can that looks a lot like Mac Beer's. Requires that you already own a DOS Beer. Claims that it allows you to drink several DOS Beers simultaneously, but in reality you can only drink a few of them, very slowly, especially slowly if you are drinking the Windows Beer at the same time. Sometimes, for apparently no reason, a can of Windows Beer will explode when you open it. +% +Windows 95 Beer: A lot of people have taste-tested it and claim it's wonderful. The can looks a lot like Mac Beer's can, but tastes more like Windows 3.1 Beer. It comes in 32-oz. cans, but when you look inside, the cans only have 16 oz. of beer in them. Most people will probably keep drinking Windows 3.1 Beer until their friends try Windows 95 Beer and say they like it. The ingredients list, when you look at the small print, has some of the same ingredients that come in DOS beer, even though the manufacturer claims that this is an entirely new brew. +% +Windows Airlines: The terminal is very neat and clean, the attendants all very attractive, the pilots very capable. The fleet of Learjets the carrier operates is immense. Your jet takes off without a hitch, pushing above the clouds, and at 20,000 feet it explodes without warning. +% +Windows NT Beer: Comes in 32-oz. cans, but you can only buy it by the truckload. This causes most people to have to go out and buy bigger refrigerators. The can looks just like Windows 3.1 Beer's, but the company promises to change the can to look just like Windows 95 Beer's -- after Windows 95 beer starts shipping. Touted as an "industrial strength" beer, and suggested only for use in bars. +% +Wings of OS/400: The airline has bought ancient DC-3s, arguably the best and safest planes that ever flew, and painted "747" on their tails to make them look as if they are fast. The flight attendants, of course, attend to your every need, though the drinks cost $15 a pop. Stupid questions cost $230 per hour, unless you have SupportLine, which requires a first class ticket and membership in the frequent flyer club. Then they cost $500, but your accounting department can call it overhead. +% +Within a computer, natural language is unnatural. +% +Work continues in this area. + -- DEC's SPR-Answering-Automaton +% +Worthless. + -- Sir George Bidell Airy, KCB, MA, LLD, DCL, FRS, FRAS + (Astronomer Royal of Great Britain), estimating for the + Chancellor of the Exchequer the potential value of the + "analytical engine" invented by Charles Babbage, September + 15, 1842. +% +Would you people stop playing these stupid games?!?!?!!!! +% +Writers who use a computer swear to its liberating power in tones that bear witness to the apocalyptic power of a new divinity. Their conviction results from something deeper than mere gratitude for the computer's conveniences. Every new medium of writing brings about new intensities of religious belief and new schisms among believers. In the 16th century the printed book helped make possible the split between Catholics and Protestants. In the 20th century this history of tragedy and triumph is repeating itself as a farce. Those who worship the Apple computer and those who put their faith in the IBM PC are equally convinced that the other camp is damned or deluded. Each cult holds in contempt the rituals and the laws of the other. Each thinks that it is itself the one hope for salvation. + -- Edward Mendelson, "The New Republic", February 22, 1988 +% +Writing software is more fun than working. +% +X windows: + Accept any substitute. + If it's broke, don't fix it. + If it ain't broke, fix it. + Form follows malfunction. + The Cutting Edge of Obsolescence. + The trailing edge of software technology. + Armageddon never looked so good. + Japan's secret weapon. + You'll envy the dead. + Making the world safe for competing window systems. + Let it get in YOUR way. + The problem for your problem. + If it starts working, we'll fix it. Pronto. + It could be worse, but it'll take time. + Simplicity made complex. + The greatest productivity aid since typhoid. + Flakey and built to stay that way. One thousand monkeys. One thousand MicroVAXes. One thousand years. + X windows. +% +X windows: + It's not how slow you make it. It's how you make it slow. + The windowing system preferred by masochists 3 to 1. + Built to take on the world... and lose! + Don't try it 'til you've knocked it. + Power tools for Power Fools. + Putting new limits on productivity. + The closer you look, the cruftier we look. + Design by counterexample. + A new level of software disintegration. + No hardware is safe. + Do your time. + Rationalization, not realization. + Old-world software cruftsmanship at its finest. + Gratuitous incompatibility. + Your mother. + THE user interference management system. + You can't argue with failure. + You haven't died 'til you've used it. The environment of today... tomorrow! + X windows. +% +X windows: + Something you can be ashamed of. + 30% more entropy than the leading window system. + The first fully modular software disaster. + Rome was destroyed in a day. + Warn your friends about it. + Climbing to new depths. Sinking to new heights. + An accident that couldn't wait to happen. + Don't wait for the movie. + Never use it after a big meal. + Need we say less? + Plumbing the depths of human incompetence. + It'll make your day. + Don't get frustrated without it. + Power tools for power losers. + A software disaster of Biblical proportions. + Never had it. Never will. + The software with no visible means of support. + More than just a generation behind. Hindenburg. Titanic. Edsel. + X windows. +% +X windows: + The ultimate bottleneck. + Flawed beyond belief. + The only thing you have to fear. + Somewhere between chaos and insanity. + On autopilot to oblivion. + The joke that kills. + A disgrace you can be proud of. + A mistake carried out to perfection. + Belongs more to the problem set than the solution set. + To err is X windows. + Ignorance is our most important resource. + Complex nonsolutions to simple nonproblems. + Built to fall apart. + Nullifying centuries of progress. + Falling to new depths of inefficiency. + The last thing you need. + The defacto substandard. Elevating brain damage to an art form. + X windows. +% +X windows: + We will dump no core before its time. + One good crash deserves another. + A bad idea whose time has come. And gone. + We make excuses. + It didn't even look good on paper. + You laugh now, but you'll be laughing harder later! + A new concept in abuser interfaces. + How can something get so bad, so quickly? + It could happen to you. + The art of incompetence. + You have nothing to lose but your lunch. + When uselessness just isn't enough. + More than a mere hindrance. It's a whole new barrier! + When you can't afford to be right. + And you thought we couldn't make it worse. If it works, it isn't X windows. +% +X windows: + You'd better sit down. + Don't laugh. It could be YOUR thesis project. + Why do it right when you can do it wrong? + Live the nightmare. + Our bugs run faster. + When it absolutely, positively HAS to crash overnight. + There ARE no rules. + You'll wish we were kidding. + Everything you never wanted in a window system. And more. + Dissatisfaction guaranteed. + There's got to be a better way. + The next best thing to keypunching. + Leave the thrashing to us. + We wrote the book on core dumps. + Even your dog won't like it. + More than enough rope. + Garbage at your fingertips. Incompatibility. Shoddiness. Uselessness. + X windows. +% +"Yacc" owes much to a most stimulating collection of users, who have goaded me beyond my inclination, and frequently beyond my ability in their endless search for "one more feature." Their irritating unwillingness to learn how to do things my way has usually led to my doing things their way; most of the time, they have been right. + -- S. C. Johnson, "Yacc guide acknowledgements" +% +Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of APL, I shall fear no evil, for I can string six primitive monadic and dyadic operators together. + -- Steve Higgins +% +Yes, we will be going to OSI, Mars, and Pluto, but not necessarily in that order. + -- Jeffrey Honig +% +You are an insult to my intelligence! I demand that you log off immediately. +% +You are false data. +% +You are in a maze of little twisting passages, all alike. +% +You are in a maze of little twisting passages, all different. +% +You are in the hall of the mountain king. +% +You are lost in the Swamps of Despair. +% +You are transported to a room where you are faced by a wizard who points to you and says, "Them's fighting words!" You immediately get attacked by all sorts of denizens of the museum: there is a cobra chewing on your leg, a troglodyte is bashing your brains out with a gold nugget, a crocodile is removing large chunks of flesh from you, a rhinoceros is goring you with his horn, a sabre-tooth cat is busy trying to disembowel you, you are being trampled by a large mammoth, a vampire is sucking you dry, a Tyranosaurus Rex is sinking his six inch long fangs into various parts of your anatomy, a large bear is dismembering your body, a gargoyle is bouncing up and down on your head, a burly troll is tearing you limb from limb, several dire wolves are making mince meat out of your torso, and the wizard is about to transport you to the corner of Westwood and Broxton. Oh dear, you seem to have gotten yourself killed, as well. You scored 0 out of 250 possible points. That gives you a ranking of junior beginning adventurer. To achieve the next higher rating, you need to score 32 more points. +% +You can be replaced by this computer. +% +You can bring any calculator you like to the midterm, as long as it doesn't dim the lights when you turn it on. + -- Hepler, Systems Design 182 +% +You can do this in a number of ways. IBM chose to do all of them. Why do you find that funny? + -- D. Taylor, Computer Science 350 +% +You can measure a programmer's perspective by noting his attitude on the continuing viability of FORTRAN. + -- Alan Perlis +% +You can now buy more gates with less specifications than at any other time in history. + -- Kenneth Parker +% +You can tell how far we have to go, when FORTRAN is the language of supercomputers. + -- Steven Feiner +% +You can tune a piano, but you can't tuna fish. You can tune a filesystem, but you can't tuna fish. + -- from the tunefs(8) man page +% +You can write a small letter to Grandma in the filename. + -- Forbes Burkowski, CS, University of Washington +% +You can't go home again, unless you set $HOME. +% +"You can't make a program without broken egos." +% +You can't take damsel here now. +% +You do not have mail. +% +You don't have to know how the computer works, just how to work the computer. +% +You had mail, but the super-user read it, and deleted it! +% +You had mail. Paul read it, so ask him what it said. +% +You have a massage (from the Swedish prime minister). +% +You have a message from the operator. +% +You have a tendency to feel you are superior to most computers. +% +You have acquired a scroll entitled 'irk gleknow mizk'(n).--More-- This is an IBM Manual scroll.--More-- You are permanently confused. + -- Dave Decot +% +You have junk mail. +% +You have mail. +% +You know you've been sitting in front of your Lisp machine too long when you go out to the junk food machine and start wondering how to make it give you the CADR of Item H so you can get that yummie chocolate cupcake that's stuck behind the disgusting vanilla one. +% +You know you've been spending too much time on the computer when your friend misdates a check, and you suggest adding a "++" to fix it. +% +You know, Callahan's is a peaceable bar, but if you ask that dog what his favorite formatter is, and he says "roff! roff!", well, I'll just have to... +% +You might have mail. +% +You must realize that the computer has it in for you. The irrefutable proof of this is that the computer always does what you tell it to do. +% +You scratch my tape, and I'll scratch yours. +% +You will have a head crash on your private pack. +% +You will have many recoverable tape errors. +% +You will lose an important disk file. +% +You will lose an important tape file. +% +You're already carrying the sphere! +% +You're at Witt's End. +% +You're not Dave. Who are you? +% +You're using a keyboard! How quaint! +% +You've been Berkeley'ed! +% +Your code should be more efficient! +% +Your computer account is overdrawn. Please reauthorize. +% +Your computer account is overdrawn. Please see Big Brother. +% +Your fault -- core dumped +% +Your files are now being encrypted and thrown into the bit bucket. EOF +% +Your mode of life will be changed to ASCII. +% +Your mode of life will be changed to EBCDIC. +% +Your password is pitifully obvious. +% +Your program is sick! Shoot it and put it out of its memory. +% diff --git a/data/etc/fortunes/Education b/data/etc/fortunes/Education new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..0382bc6004 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/etc/fortunes/Education @@ -0,0 +1,635 @@ +A book is the work of a mind, doing its work in the way that a mind deems best. That's dangerous. Is the work of some mere individual mind likely to serve the aims of collectively accepted compromises, which are known in the schools as 'standards'? Any mind that would audaciously put itself forth to work all alone is surely a bad example for the students, and probably, if not downright antisocial, at least a little off-center, self-indulgent, elitist. ... It's just good pedagogy, therefore, to stay away from such stuff, and use instead, if film-strips and rap-sessions must be supplemented, 'texts,' selected, or prepared, or adapted, by real professionals. Those texts are called 'reading material.' They are the academic equivalent of the 'listening material' that fills waiting-rooms, and the 'eating material' that you can buy in thousands of convenient eating resource centers along the roads. + -- The Underground Grammarian +% +A definition of teaching: casting fake pearls before real swine. + -- Bill Cain, "Stand Up Tragedy" +% +A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education. + -- G. B. Shaw +% +A good question is never answered. It is not a bolt to be tightened into place but a seed to be planted and to bear more seed toward the hope of greening the landscape of idea. + -- John Ciardi +% +A grammarian's life is always in tense. +% +A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. + -- William James +% +A mother mouse was taking her large brood for a stroll across the kitchen floor one day when the local cat, by a feat of stealth unusual even for its species, managed to trap them in a corner. The children cowered, terrified by this fearsome beast, plaintively crying, "Help, Mother! Save us! Save us! We're scared, Mother!" + Mother Mouse, with the hopeless valor of a parent protecting its children, turned with her teeth bared to the cat, towering huge above them, and suddenly began to bark in a fashion that would have done any Doberman proud. The startled cat fled in fear for its life. + As her grateful offspring flocked around her shouting "Oh, Mother, you saved us!" and "Yay! You scared the cat away!" she turned to them purposefully and declared, "You see how useful it is to know a second language?" +% +A Parable of Modern Research: + +Bob has lost his keys in a room which is dark except for one brightly lit corner. +"Why are you looking under the light, you lost them in the dark!" +"I can only see here." +% +A pencil with no point needs no eraser. +% + A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling + by Mark Twain + + For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped to be replased either by "k" or "s", and likewise "x" would no longer be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be retained would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with "i" and Iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all. + Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants. Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez "c", "y" and "x" -- bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez -- tu riplais "ch", "sh", and "th" rispektivli. + Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld. +% +A professor is one who talks in someone else's sleep. +% + A reader reports that when the patient died, the attending doctor recorded the following on the patient's chart: "Patient failed to fulfill his wellness potential." + Another doctor reports that in a recent issue of the *American Journal of Family Practice* fleas were called "hematophagous arthropod vectors." + A reader reports that the Army calls them "vertically deployed anti-personnel devices." You probably call them bombs. + At McClellan Air Force base in Sacramento, California, civilian mechanics were placed on "non-duty, non-pay status." That is, they were fired. + After taking the trip of a lifetime, our reader sent his twelve rolls of film to Kodak for developing (or "processing," as Kodak likes to call it) only to receive the following notice: "We must report that during the handling of your twelve 35mm Kodachrome slide orders, the films were involved in an unusual laboratory experience." The use of the passive is a particularly nice +touch, don't you think? Nobody did anything to the films; they just had a bad experience. Of course our reader can always go back to Tibet and take his pictures all over again, using the twelve replacement rolls Kodak so generously sent him. + -- Quarterly Review of Doublespeak (NCTE) +% +A student who changes the course of history is probably taking an exam. +% +A synonym is a word you use when you can't spell the word you first thought of. + -- Burt Bacharach +% +A tautology is a thing which is tautological. +% +A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students. + -- John Ciardi +% +"A University without students is like an ointment without a fly." + -- Ed Nather, professor of astronomy at UT Austin +% +About all some men accomplish in life is to send a son to Harvard. +% +Abstract: + This study examined the incidence of neckwear tightness among a group of 94 white-collar working men and the effect of a tight business-shirt collar and tie on the visual performance of 22 male subjects. Of the white-collar men measured, 67% were found to be wearing neckwear that was tighter than their neck circumference. The visual discrimination of the 22 subjects was evaluated using a critical flicker frequency (CFF) test. Results of the CFF test indicated that tight neckwear significantly decreased the visual performance of the subjects and that visual performance did not improve immediately when tight neckwear was removed. + -- Langan, L.M. and Watkins, S.M. "Pressure of Menswear on the Neck in Relation to Visual Performance." Human Factors 29, #1 (Feb. 1987), pp. 67-71. +% +Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics, because the stakes are so low. + -- Wallace Sayre +% +Academicians care, that's who. +% +=============== ALL FRESHMEN PLEASE NOTE =============== + +To minimize scheduling confusion, please realize that if you are taking one course which is offered at only one time on a given day, and another which is offered at all times on that day, the second class will be arranged as to afford maximum inconvenience to the student. For example, if you happen to work on campus, you will have 1-2 hours between classes. If you commute, there will be a minimum of 6 hours between the two classes. +% +An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest. + -- Benjamin Franklin +% +Any two philosophers can tell each other all they know in two hours. + -- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. +% +As Gen. de Gaulle occassionally acknowledges America to be the daughter of Europe, so I am pleased to come to Yale, the daughter of Harvard. + -- J.F. Kennedy +% +As long as the answer is right, who cares if the question is wrong? +% +Briefly stated, the findings are that when presented with an array of data or a sequence of events in which they are instructed to discover an underlying order, subjects show strong tendencies to perceive order and causality in random arrays, to perceive a pattern or correlation which seems a priori intuitively correct even when the actual correlation in the data is counterintuitive, to jump to conclusions about the correct hypothesis, to seek and to use only positive or confirmatory evidence, to construe evidence liberally as confirmatory, to fail to generate or to assess alternative hypotheses, and having thus managed to expose themselves only to confirmatory instances, to be fallaciously confident of the validity of their judgments (Jahoda, 1969; Einhorn and Hogarth, 1978). In the analyzing of past events, these tendencies are exacerbated by failure to appreciate the pitfalls of post hoc analyses. + -- A. Benjamin +% +British education is probably the best in the world, if you can survive it. If you can't there is nothing left for you but the diplomatic corps. + -- Peter Ustinov +% +... But if we laugh with derision, we will never understand. Human intellectual capacity has not altered for thousands of years so far as we can tell. If intelligent people invested intense energy in issues that now seem foolish to us, then the failure lies in our understanding of their world, not in their distorted perceptions. Even the standard example of ancient nonsense -- the debate about angels on pinheads -- makes sense once you realize that theologians were not discussing whether five or eighteen would fit, but whether a pin could house a finite or an infinite number. + -- S. J. Gould, "Wide Hats and Narrow Minds" +% +Campus sidewalks never exist as the straightest line between two points. + -- M. M. Johnston +% +Comparing information and knowledge is like asking whether the fatness of a pig is more or less green than the designated hitter rule." + -- David Guaspari +% +Dear Freshman, + You don't know who I am and frankly shouldn't care, but unknown to you we have something in common. We are both rather prone to mistakes. I was elected Student Government President by mistake, and you came to school here by mistake. +% +Dear Miss Manners: + My home economics teacher says that one must never place one's elbows on the table. However, I have read that one elbow, in between courses, is all right. Which is correct? + +Gentle Reader: + For the purpose of answering examinations in your home economics class, your teacher is correct. Catching on to this principle of education may be of even greater importance to you now than learning correct current table manners, vital as Miss Manners believes that is. +% +Department chairmen never die, they just lose their faculties. +% +Did you know the University of Iowa closed down after someone stole the book? +% +Do not clog intellect's sluices with bits of knowledge of questionable uses. +% +Do you know the difference between education and experience? Education is what you get when you read the fine print; experience is what you get when you don't. + -- Pete Seeger +% +Do you think that illiterate people get the full effect of alphabet soup? +% +Education and religion are two things not regulated by supply and demand. The less of either the people have, the less they want. + -- Charlotte Observer, 1897 +% +Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught. + -- Oscar Wilde, "The Critic as Artist" +% +Education is learning what you didn't even know you didn't know. + -- Daniel J. Boorstin +% +Education is the process of casting false pearls before real swine. + -- Irwin Edman +% +Education is what survives when what has been learnt has been forgotten. + -- B.F. Skinner +% +Educational television should be absolutely forbidden. It can only lead to unreasonable disappointment when your child discovers that the letters of the alphabet do not leap up out of books and dance around with royal-blue chickens. + -- Fran Lebowitz, "Social Studies" +% +Eloquence is logic on fire. +% +Encyclopedia for sale by father. Son knows everything. +% +Engineering: "How will this work?" +Science: "Why will this work?" +Management: "When will this work?" +Liberal Arts: "Do you want fries with that?" +% +Even if you do learn to speak correct English, whom are you going to speak it to? + -- Clarence Darrow +% +Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a bestseller that could have been prevented by a good teacher. + -- Flannery O'Connor +% +Examinations are formidable even to the best prepared, for even the greatest fool may ask more the the wisest man can answer. + -- C.C. Colton +% +Experience is the worst teacher. It always gives the test first and the instruction afterward. +% +F u cn rd ths u cnt spl wrth a drn! +% +f u cn rd ths, itn tyg h myxbl cd. +% +f u cn rd ths, u cn gt a gd jb n cmptr prgrmmng. +% +f u cn rd ths, u r prbbly a lsy spllr. +% +Fourteen years in the professor dodge has taught me that one can argue ingeniously on behalf of any theory, applied to any piece of literature. This is rarely harmful, because normally no-one reads such essays. + -- Robert Parker, quoted in "Murder Ink", ed. D. Wynn +% +Going to church does not make a person religious, nor does going to school make a person educated, any more than going to a garage makes a person a car. +% +Good day to avoid cops. Crawl to school. +% +Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths good theatre. + -- Gail Godwin +% +Graduate life: It's not just a job. It's an indenture. +% +Graduate students and most professors are no smarter than undergrads. They're just older. +% +He that teaches himself has a fool for a master. + -- Benjamin Franklin +% +"He was a modest, good-humored boy. It was Oxford that made him insufferable." +% +He who writes with no misspelled words has prevented a first suspicion on the limits of his scholarship or, in the social world, of his general education and culture. + -- Julia Norton McCorkle +% +[He] took me into his library and showed me his books, of which he had a complete set. + -- Ring Lardner +% +Higher education helps your earning capacity. Ask any college professor. +% +History books which contain no lies are extremely dull. +% +History is nothing but a collection of fables and useless trifles, cluttered up with a mass of unnecessary figures and proper names. + -- Leo Tolstoy +% +How do you explain school to a higher intelligence? + -- Elliot, "E.T." +% +I am a bookaholic. If you are a decent person, you will not sell me another book. +% +"I am not sure what this is, but an `F' would only dignify it." + -- English Professor +% +I am returning this otherwise good typing paper to you because someone has printed gibberish all over it and put your name at the top. + -- Professor Lowd, English, Ohio University +% +I appreciate the fact that this draft was done in haste, but some of the sentences that you are sending out in the world to do your work for you are loitering in taverns or asleep beside the highway. + -- Dr. Dwight Van de Vate, Professor of Philosophy, University of Tennessee at Knoxville +% +I came out of twelve years of college and I didn't even know how to sew. All I could do was account -- I couldn't even account for myself. + -- Firesign Theatre +% +I came to MIT to get an education for myself and a diploma for my mother. +% +I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter. + -- Blaise Pascal +% +"I have to convince you, or at least snow you ..." + -- Prof. Romas Aleliunas, CS 435 +% +I heard a definition of an intellectual, that I thought was very interesting: a man who takes more words than are necessary to tell more than he knows. + -- Dwight D. Eisenhower +% +I respect faith, but doubt is what gives you an education. + -- Wilson Mizner +% +I think your opinions are reasonable, except for the one about my mental instability. + -- Psychology Professor, Farifield University +% +"I'm returning this note to you, instead of your paper, because it (your paper) presently occupies the bottom of my bird cage." + -- English Professor, Providence College +% +If any man wishes to be humbled and mortified, let him become president of Harvard. + -- Edward Holyoke +% +If he had only learnt a little less, how infinitely better he might have taught much more! +% +If ignorance is bliss, why aren't there more happy people? +% +If little else, the brain is an educational toy. + -- Tom Robbins +% +If someone had told me I would be Pope one day, I would have studied harder. + -- Pope John Paul I +% +If the colleges were better, if they really had it, you would need to get the police at the gates to keep order in the inrushing multitude. See in college how we thwart the natural love of learning by leaving the natural method of teaching what each wishes to learn, and insisting that you shall learn what you have no taste or capacity for. The college, which should be a place of delightful labor, is made odious and unhealthy, and the young men are tempted to frivolous amusements to rally their jaded spirits. I would have the studies elective. Scholarship is to be created not by compulsion, but by awakening a pure interest in knowledge. The wise instructor accomplishes this by opening to his pupils precisely the attractions the study has for himself. The marking is a system for schools, not for the college; for boys, not for men; and it is an ungracious work to put on a professor. + -- Ralph Waldo Emerson +% +If truth is beauty, how come no one has their hair done in the library? + -- Lily Tomlin +% +If we spoke a different language, we would perceive a somewhat different world. + -- Wittgenstein +% +If while you are in school, there is a shortage of qualified personnel in a particular field, then by the time you graduate with the necessary qualifications, that field's employment market is glutted. + -- Marguerite Emmons +% +If you are too busy to read, then you are too busy. +% +If you can't read this, blame a teacher. +% +If you resist reading what you disagree with, how will you ever acquire deeper insights into what you believe? The things most worth reading are precisely those that challenge our convictions. +% +If you think education is expensive, try ignorance. + -- Derek Bok, president of Harvard +% +If you took all the students that felt asleep in class and laid them end to end, they'd be a lot more comfortable. + -- "Graffiti in the Big Ten" +% +"If you understand what you're doing, you're not learning anything." + -- A. L. +% +Ignorance is never out of style. It was in fashion yesterday, it is the rage today, and it will set the pace tomorrow. + -- Franklin K. Dane +% +Ignorance is when you don't know anything and somebody finds it out. +% +Ignorance must certainly be bliss or there wouldn't be so many people so resolutely pursuing it. +% +Illiterate? Write today, for free help! +% + In a forest a fox bumps into a little rabbit, and says, "Hi, Junior, what are you up to?" + "I'm writing a dissertation on how rabbits eat foxes," said the rabbit. + "Come now, friend rabbit, you know that's impossible! No one will publish such rubbish!" + "Well, follow me and I'll show you." + They both go into the rabbit's dwelling and after a while the rabbit emerges with a satisfied expression on his face. Comes along a wolf. "Hello, little buddy, what are we doing these days?" + "I'm writing the 2'nd chapter of my thesis, on how rabbits devour wolves." + "Are you crazy? Where's your academic honesty?" + "Come with me and I'll show you." + As before, the rabbit comes out with a satisfied look on his face and a diploma in his paw. Finally, the camera pans into the rabbit's cave and, as everybody should have guessed by now, we see a mean-looking, huge lion, sitting, picking his teeth and belching, next to some furry, bloody remnants of the wolf and the fox. + + The moral: It's not the contents of your thesis that are important -- it's your PhD advisor that really counts. +% +In California, Bill Honig, the Superintendent of Public Instruction, said he thought the general public should have a voice in defining what an excellent teacher should know. "I would not leave the definition of math," Dr. Honig said, "up to the mathematicians." + -- The New York Times, October 22, 1985 +% +Instead of giving money to found colleges to promote learning, why don't they pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting anybody from learning anything? If it works as good as the Prohibition one did, why, in five years we would have the smartest race of people on earth. + -- The Best of Will Rogers +% +Iowa State -- the high school after high school! + -- Crow T. Robot +% +It has been said [by Anatole France], "it is not by amusing oneself that one learns," and, in reply: "it is *only* by amusing oneself that one can learn." + -- Edward Kasner and James R. Newman +% +It has long been an article of our folklore that too much knowledge or skill, or especially consummate expertise, is a bad thing. It dehumanizes those who achieve it, and makes difficult their commerce with just plain folks, in whom good old common sense has not been obliterated by mere book learning or fancy notions. This popular delusion flourishes now more than ever, for we are all infected with it in the schools, where educationists have elevated it from folklore to Article of Belief. It enhances their self-esteem and lightens their labors by providing theoretical justification for deciding that appreciation, or even simple awareness, is more to be prized than knowledge, and relating (to self and others), more than skill, in which minimum +competence will be quite enough. + -- The Underground Grammarian +% + It is a profoundly erroneous truism, repeated by all copy-books and by eminent people when they are making speeches, that we should cultivate the habit of thinking about what we are doing. The precise opposite is the case. Civilization advances by extending the numbers of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them. Operations of thought are like cavalry charges in battle -- they are strictly limited in number, they require fresh horses, and must only be made at decisive moments. + -- Alfred North Whitehead +% +It's grad exam time... + +COMPUTER SCIENCE + Inside your desk you'll find a listing of the DEC/VMS operating system in IBM 1710 machine code. Show what changes are necessary to convert this code into a UNIX Berkeley 7 operating system. Prove that these fixes are bug free and run correctly. You should gain at least 150% efficiency in the new system. (You should take no more than 10 minutes on this question.) + +MATHEMATICS + If X equals PI times R^2, construct a formula showing how long it would take a fire ant to drill a hole through a dill pickle, if the length-girth ratio of the ant to the pickle were 98.17:1. + +GENERAL KNOWLEDGE +Describe the Universe. Give three examples. + +MEDICINE + You have been provided with a razor blade, a piece of gauze, and a bottle of Scotch. Remove your appendix. Do not suture until your work has been inspected. (You have 15 minutes.) + +HISTORY + Describe the history of the papacy from its origins to the present day, concentrating especially, but not exclusively, on its social, political, economic, religious and philisophical impact upon Europe, Asia, America, and Africa. Be brief, concise, and specific. +% +It's is not, it isn't ain't, and it's it's, not its, if you mean it is. If you don't, it's its. Then too, it's hers. It isn't her's. It isn't our's either. It's ours, and likewise yours and theirs. + -- Oxford University Press, Edpress News +% +Joe Cool always spends the first two weeks at college sailing his frisbee. + -- Snoopy +% +Learned men are the cisterns of knowledge, not the fountainheads. +% +Learning at some schools is like drinking from a firehose. +% +Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous. + -- Confucius +% +Maybe ain't ain't so correct, but I notice that lots of folks who ain't using ain't ain't eatin' well. + -- Will Rogers +% +Most seminars have a happy ending. Everyone's glad when they're over. +% +My father, a good man, told me, "Never lose your ignorance; you cannot replace it." + -- Erich Maria Remarque +% +Never have so many understood so little about so much. + -- James Burke +% +Never let your schooling interfere with your education. +% +No discipline is ever requisite to force attendance upon lectures which are really worth the attending. + -- Adam Smith, "The Wealth of Nations" +% +No matter who you are, some scholar can show you the great idea you had was had by someone before you. +% +No wonder you're tired! You understood so much today. +% +Normally our rules are rigid; we tend to discretion, if for no other reason than self-protection. We never recommend any of our graduates, although we cheerfully provide information as to those who have failed their courses. + -- Jack Vance, "Freitzke's Turn" +% +Not only is this incomprehensible, but the ink is ugly and the paper is from the wrong kind of tree. + -- Professor, EECS, George Washington University + +I'm looking forward to working with you on this next year. + -- Professor, Harvard, on a senior thesis. +% +`O' LEVEL COUNTER CULTURE +Timewarp allowed: 3 hours. Do not scrawl situationalist graffiti in the margins or stub your rollups in the inkwells. Orange may be worn. Credit will be given to candidates who self-actualise. + +(1) Compare and contrast Pink Floyd with Black Sabbath and say why neither has street credibility. +(2) "Even Buddha would have been hard pushed to reach Nirvana squatting on a juggernaut route." Consider the dialectic of inner truth and inner city. +(3) Discuss degree of hassle involved in paranoia about being sucked into a black hole. +(4) "The Egomaniac's Liberation Front were a bunch of revisionist ripoff merchants." Comment on this insult. +(5) Account for the lack of references to brown rice in Dylan's lyrics. +(6) "Castenada was a bit of a bozo." How far is this a fair summing up of western dualism? +(7) Hermann Hesse was a Pisces. Discuss. +% +"OK, now let's look at four dimensions on the blackboard." + -- Dr. Joy +% +OK, so you're a Ph.D. Just don't touch anything. +% +One cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs -- but it is amazing how many eggs one can break without making a decent omelette. + -- Professor Charles P. Issawi +% +"Plaese porrf raed." + -- Prof. Michael O'Longhlin, S.U.N.Y. Purchase +% +Practice is the best of all instructors. + -- Publilius +% +Princeton's taste is sweet like a strawberry tart. Harvard's is a subtle taste, like whiskey, coffee, or tobacco. It may even be a bad habit, for all I know. + -- Prof. J.H. Finley '25 +% +Professor Gorden Newell threw another shutout in last week's Chem Eng. 130 midterm. Once again a student did not receive a single point on his exam. Newell has now tossed 5 shutouts this quarter. Newell's earned exam average has now dropped to a phenomenal 30%. +% +Reading is thinking with someone else's head instead of one's own. +% +Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. +% +Reporter: "How did you like school when you were growing up, Yogi?" +Yogi Berra: "Closed." +% +Rules for Good Grammar #4. + + (1) Don't use no double negatives. + (2) Make each pronoun agree with their antecedents. + (3) Join clauses good, like a conjunction should. + (4) About them sentence fragments. + (5) When dangling, watch your participles. + (6) Verbs has got to agree with their subjects. + (7) Just between you and i, case is important. + (8) Don't write run-on sentences when they are hard to read. + (9) Don't use commas, which aren't necessary. +(10) Try to not ever split infinitives. +(11) It is important to use your apostrophe's correctly. +(12) Proofread your writing to see if you any words out. +(13) Correct speling is essential. +(14) A preposition is something you never end a sentence with. +(15) While a transcendant vocabulary is laudable, one must be eternally careful so that the calculated objective of communication does not become ensconsed in obscurity. In other words, eschew obfuscation. +% +Smartness runs in my family. When I went to school I was so smart my teacher was in my class for five years. + -- George Burns +% +Some scholars are like donkeys, they merely carry a lot of books. + -- Folk saying +% +"Speed is subsittute fo accurancy." +% +Spelling is a lossed art. +% +Suddenly, Professor Liebowitz realizes he has come to the seminar without his duck ... +% +Teachers have class. +% +The 'A' is for content, the 'minus' is for not typing it. Don't ever do this to my eyes again. + -- Professor Ronald Brady, Philosophy, Ramapo State College +% +The alarm clock that is louder than God's own belongs to the roommate with the earliest class. +% +The average Ph.D thesis is nothing but the transference of bones from one graveyard to another. + -- J. Frank Dobie, "A Texan in England" +% +The avocation of assessing the failures of better men can be turned into a comfortable livelihood, providing you back it up with a Ph.D. + -- Nelson Algren, "Writers at Work" +% + "The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then -- to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn." + -- T.H. White, "The Once and Future King" +% +The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get up in the morning, and does not stop until you get to school. +% +The college graduate is presented with a sheepskin to cover his intellectual nakedness. + -- Robert M. Hutchins +% +The end of the world will occur at three p.m., this Friday, with symposium to follow. +% +The future is a race between education and catastrophe. + -- H.G. Wells +% +The important thing is not to stop questioning. +% +The man who has never been flogged has never been taught. + -- Menander +% +The only thing that experience teaches us is that experience teaches us nothing. + -- Andre Maurois (Emile Herzog) +% +The only thing we learn from history is that we do not learn. + -- Earl Warren + +That men do not learn very much from history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach. + -- Aldous Huxley + +We learn from history that we do not learn from history. + -- Georg Hegel + +HISTORY: Papa Hegel he say that all we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history. I know people who can't even learn from what happened this morning. Hegel must have been taking the long view. + -- Chad C. Mulligan, "The Hipcrime Vocab" +% +The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history. + -- Hegel + +I know guys can't learn from yesterday ... Hegel must be taking the long view. + -- John Brunner, "Stand on Zanzibar" +% +The problem with graduate students, in general, is that they have to sleep every few days. +% +The ratio of literacy to illiteracy is a constant, but nowadays the illiterates can read. + -- Alberto Moravia +% +The real purpose of books is to trap the mind into doing its own thinking. + -- Christopher Morley +% +"The student in question is performing minimally for his peer group and is an emerging underachiever." +% +The sum of the intelligence of the world is constant. The population is, of course, growing. +% +The sunlights differ, but there is only one darkness. + -- Ursula K. LeGuin, "The Dispossessed" +% +The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. + -- F. Scott Fitzgerald +% +The three best things about going to school are June, July, and August. +% +The Tree of Learning bears the noblest fruit, but noble fruit tastes bad. +% +The USA is so enormous, and so numerous are its schools, colleges and religious seminaries, many devoted to special religious beliefs ranging from the unorthodox to the dotty, that we can hardly wonder at its yielding a more bounteous harvest of gobbledegook than the rest of the world put together. + -- Sir Peter Medawar +% +The world is coming to an end! Repent and return those library books! +% +The world is full of people who have never, since childhood, met an open doorway with an open mind. + -- E.B. White +% +There are no answers, only cross-references. + -- Weiner +% +This is the sort of English up with which I will not put. + -- Winston Churchill +% +Those who educate children well are more to be honored than parents, for these only gave life, those the art of living well. + -- Aristotle +% +Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils. + -- Hector Berlioz +% +To accuse others for one's own misfortunes is a sign of want of education. To accuse oneself shows that one's education has begun. To accuse neither oneself nor others shows that one's education is complete. + -- Epictetus +% +To craunch a marmoset. + -- Pedro Carolino, "English as She is Spoke" +% +To teach is to learn twice. + -- Joseph Joubert +% +To teach is to learn. +% +Try not to have a good time ... This is supposed to be educational. + -- Charles Schulz +% +Trying to get an education here is like trying to get a drink from a fire hose. +% +Universities are places of knowledge. The freshman each bring a little in with them, and the seniors take none away, so knowledge accumulates. +% +University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small. + -- Henry Kissinger +% +Walt: Dad, what's gradual school? +Garp: Gradual school? +Walt: Yeah. Mom says her work's more fun now that she's teaching gradual school. +Garp: Oh. Well, gradual school is someplace you go and gradually find out that you don't want to go to school anymore. + -- The World According To Garp +% +"We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!" + -- Vroomfondel +% +We know next to nothing about virtually everything. It is not necessary to know the origin of the universe; it is necessary to want to know. Civilization depends not on any particular knowledge, but on the disposition to crave knowledge. + -- George Will +% +We're fantastically incredibly sorry for all these extremely unreasonable things we did. I can only plead that my simple, barely-sentient friend and myself are underprivileged, deprived and also college students. + -- Waldo D.R. Dobbs +% + "We're running out of adjectives to describe our situation. We had crisis, then we went into chaos, and now what do we call this?" said Nicaraguan economist Francisco Mayorga, who holds a doctorate from Yale. + -- The Washington Post, February, 1988 + +The New Yorker's comment: + At Harvard they'd call it a noun. +% +What does education often do? It makes a straight cut ditch of a free meandering brook. + -- Henry David Thoreau +% +What I Did During My Fall Semester + +On the first day of my fall semester, I got up. +Then I went to the library to find a thesis topic. +Then I hung out in front of the Dover. + +On the second day of my fall semester, I got up. +Then I went to the library to find a thesis topic. +Then I hung out in front of the Dover. + +On the third day of my fall semester, I got up. +Then I went to the library to find a thesis topic. +I found a thesis topic: +How to keep people from hanging out in front of the Dover. + -- Sister Mary Elephant, "Student Statement for Black Friday" +% +What makes you think graduate school is supposed to be satisfying? + -- Erica Jong, "Fear of Flying" +% +What passes for optimism is most often the effect of an intellectual error. + -- Raymond Aron, "The Opium of the Intellectuals" +% +What we do not understand we do not possess. + -- Goethe +% +What's page one, a preemptive strike? + -- Professor Freund, Communication, Ramapo State College +% +When I was in school, I cheated on my metaphysics exam: I looked into the soul of the boy sitting next to me. + -- Woody Allen +% +Whenever anyone says, "theoretically," they really mean, "not really." + -- Dave Parnas +% +Where do I find the time for not reading so many books? + -- Karl Kraus +% +"Whom are you?" said he, for he had been to night school. + -- George Ade +% + Wouldn't the sentence "I want to put a hyphen between the words Fish and And and And and Chips in my Fish-And-Chips sign" have been clearer if quotation marks had been placed before Fish, and between Fish and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and Chips, as well as after Chips? +% +You can't expect a boy to be vicious till he's been to a good school. + -- H.H. Munro +% +You don't have to think too hard when you talk to teachers. + -- J. D. Salinger +% +You may have heard that a dean is to faculty as a hydrant is to a dog. + -- Alfred Kahn +% +"You should, without hesitation, pound your typewriter into a plowshare, your paper into fertilizer, and enter agriculture" + -- Business Professor, University of Georgia +% +Your education begins where what is called your education is over. diff --git a/data/etc/fortunes/Food b/data/etc/fortunes/Food new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..4aa1271773 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/etc/fortunes/Food @@ -0,0 +1,659 @@ +1893 The ideal brain tonic +1900 Drink Coca-Cola -- delicious and refreshing -- 5 cents at all soda fountains +1905 Is the favorite drink for LADIES when thirsty -- weary -- despondent +1905 Refreshes the weary, brightens the intellect and clears the brain +1906 The drink of QUALITY +1907 Good to the last drop +1907 It satisfies the thirst and pleases the palate +1907 Refreshing as a summer breeze. Delightful as a Dip in the Sea +1908 The Drink that Cheers but does not inebriate +1917 There's a delicious freshness to the taste of Coca-Cola +1919 It satisfies thirst +1919 The taste is the test +1922 Every glass holds the answer to thirst +1922 Thirst knows no season +1925 Enjoy the sociable drink + -- Coca-Cola slogans +% +1925 With a drink so good, 'tis folly to be thirsty +1929 The high sign of refreshment +1929 The pause that refreshes +1930 It had to be good to get where it is +1932 The drink that makes a pause refreshing +1935 The pause that brings friends together +1937 STOP for a pause... GO refreshed +1938 The best friend thirst ever had +1939 Thirst stops here +1942 It's the real thing +1947 Have a Coke +1961 Zing! what a REFRESHING NEW FEELING +1963 Things go better with Coke +1969 Face Uncle Sam with a Coke in your hand +1979 Have a Coke and a smile +1982 Coke is it! + -- Coca-Cola slogans +% + A couple of kids tried using pickles instead of paddles for a Ping-Pong game. They had the volley of the Dills. +% + A farm in the country side had several turkeys, it was known as the house of seven gobbles. +% +A gourmet who thinks of calories is like a tart that looks at her watch. + -- James Beard +% + A new chef from India was fired a week after starting the job. He kept favoring curry. +% +A waist is a terrible thing to mind. + -- Ziggy +% + A wife started serving chopped meat, Monday hamburger, Tuesday meat loaf, Wednesday tartar steak, and Thursday meatballs. On Friday morning her husband snarled, "How now, ground cow?" +% +Actor: So what do you do for a living? +Doris: I work for a company that makes deceptively shallow serving dishes for Chinese restaurants. + -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers" +% +Actually, my goal is to have a sandwich named after me. +% + "And what will you do when you grow up to be as big as me?" asked the father of his little son. + "Diet." +% +Anything is good if it's made of chocolate. +% +Anything that is good and useful is made of chocolate. +% +As he had feared, his orders had been forgotten and everyone had brought the potato salad. +% +As with most fine things, chocolate has its season. There is a simple memory aid that you can use to determine whether it is the correct time to order chocolate dishes: any month whose name contains the letter A, E, or U is the proper time for chocolate. + -- Sandra Boynton, "Chocolate: The Consuming Passion" +% +Be careful when you bite into your hamburger. + -- Derek Bok +% +BOO! We changed Coke again! BLEAH! BLEAH! +% +Boycott meat -- suck your thumb. +% +Carob works on the principle that, when mixed with the right combination of fats and sugar, it can duplicate chocolate in color and texture. Of course, the same can be said of dirt. +% +Cheese -- milk's leap toward immortality. + -- Clifton Fadiman, "Any Number Can Play" +% +Chinese saying: "He who speak with forked tongue, not need chopsticks." +% +Consider the following axioms carefully: + "Everything's better when it sits on a Ritz." + and + "Everything's better with Blue Bonnet on it." +What happens if one spreads Blue Bonnet margarine on a Ritz cracker? The thought is frightening. Is this how God came into being? Try not to consider the fact that "Things go better with Coke". +% +Dear Mister Language Person: I am curious about the expression, "Part of this complete breakfast". The way it comes up is, my 5-year-old will be watching TV cartoon shows in the morning, and they'll show a commercial for a children's compressed breakfast compound such as "Froot Loops" or "Lucky Charms", and they always show it sitting on a table next to some actual food such as eggs, and the announcer always says: "Part of this complete breakfast". Don't that really mean, "Adjacent to this complete breakfast", or "On the same table as this complete breakfast"? And couldn't they make essentially the same claim if, instead of Froot Loops, they put a can of shaving cream there, or a dead bat? + +Answer: Yes. + -- Dave Barry, "Tips for Writer's" +% +Death before dishonor. But neither before breakfast. +% +Did you hear that Captain Crunch, Sugar Bear, Tony the Tiger, and Snap, Crackle and Pop were all murdered recently... + +Police suspect the work of a cereal killer! +% +Dieters live life in the fasting lane. +% +Dinner is ready when the smoke alarm goes off. +% +Do not drink coffee in early A.M. It will keep you awake until noon. +% +Do not worry about which side your bread is buttered on: you eat BOTH sides. +% +Do you feel personally responsible for the world food shortage? +Every time you go to the beach, does the tide come in? +Have you ever eaten an entire moose? +Can you see your neck? +Do joggers take laps around you for exercise? +If so, welcome to National Fat Week. +This week we'll eat without guilt, and kick off our membership campaign, + ...by force-feeding a box of cornstarch to a skinny person. + -- Garfield +% + During the American Revolution, a Britisher tried to raid a farm. He stumbled across a rock on the ground and fell, whereupon an agressive Rhode Island Red hopped on top. Seeing this, the farmer commented, "Chicken catch a Tory!" +% +Eat as much as you like -- just don't swallow it. + -- Harry Secombe's diet +% +Eat drink and be merry! Tommorrow you may be in Utah. +% +Eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow they may make it illegal. +% +Eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow we diet. +% +Eat right, stay fit, and die anyway. +% +"Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you may work." +% +Eating chocolate is like being in love without the aggravation. +% +Even a blind pig stumbles upon a few acorns. +% +Even a cabbage may look at a king. +% +Every time I lose weight, it finds me again! +% +Everything I like is either illegal, immoral or fattening. + -- Alexander Woollcott +% +Everything is worth precisely as much as a belch, the difference being that a belch is more satisfying. + -- Ingmar Bergman +% +Fat Liberation: because a waist is a terrible thing to mind. +% +Fat people of the world unite, we've got nothing to lose! +% +Food for thought is no substitute for the real thing. + -- Walt Kelly, "Potluck Pogo" +% +For those of you who have been unfortunate enough to never have tasted the 'Great Chieftain O' the Pudden Race' (i.e. haggis) here is an easy to follow recipe which results in a dish remarkably similar to the above mentioned protected species. + Ingredients: + 1 Sheep's Pluck (heart, lungs, liver) and bag + 2 teacupsful toasted oatmeal + 1 teaspoonful salt + 8 oz. shredded suet + 2 small onions + 1/2 teaspoonful black pepper + + Scrape and clean bag in cold, then warm, water. Soak in salt water overnight. Wash pluck, then boil for 2 hours with windpipe draining over the side of pot. Retain 1 pint of stock. Cut off windpipe, remove surplus gristle, chop or mince heart and lungs, and grate best part of liver (about half only). Parboil and chop onions, mix all together with oatmeal, suet, salt, pepper and stock to moisten. Pack the mixture into bag, allowing for swelling. Boil for three hours, pricking regularly all over. If bag not available, steam in greased basin covered by greaseproof paper and cloth for +four to five hours. +% +Fortune's Contribution of the Month to the Animal Rights Debate: + + I'll stay out of animals' way if they'll stay out of mine. + "Hey you, get off my plate" + -- Roger Midnight +% +Fortune's diet truths: +1: Forget what the cookbooks say, plain yogurt tastes nothing like sour cream. +2: Any recipe calling for soybeans tastes like mud. +3: Carob is not an acceptable substitute for chocolate. In fact, carob is not an acceptable substitute for anything, except, perhaps, brown shoe polish. +4: There is no such thing as a "fun salad." So let's stop pretending and see salads for what they are: God's punishment for being fat. +5: Fruit salad without maraschino cherries and marshmallows is about as appealing as tepid beer. +6: A world lacking gravy is a tragic place! +7: You should immediately pass up any recipes entitled "luscious and low-cal." Also skip dishes featuring "lively liver." They aren't and it isn't. +8: Wearing a blindfold often makes many diet foods more palatable. +9: Fresh fruit is not dessert. CAKE is dessert! +10: Okra tastes slightly worse than its name implies. +11: A plain baked potato isn't worth the effort involved in chewing and swallowing. +% +God must have loved calories, He made so many of them. +% +GREAT MOMENTS IN HISTORY (#7): November 23, 1915 + +Pancake make-up is invented; most people continue to prefer syrup. +% +Has anyone ever tasted an "end"? Are they really bitter? +% + Has your family tried 'em? + + POWDERMILK BISCUITS + + Heavens, they're tasty and expeditious! + + They're made from whole wheat, to give shy persons + the strength to get up and do what needs to be done. + + POWDERMILK BISCUITS + + Buy them ready-made in the big blue box with the picture of + the biscuit on the front, or in the brown bag with the dark + stains that indicate freshness. +% +Have a taco. + -- P.S. Beagle +% +Home on the Range was originally written in beef-flat. +% +Hors d'oeuvres -- a ham sandwich cut into forty pieces. + -- Jack Benny +% + "How did you spend the weekend?" asked the pretty brunette secretary of her blonde companion. + "Fishing through the ice," she replied. + "Fishing through the ice? Whatever for?" + "Olives." +% +How many hors d'oeuvres you are allowed to take off a tray being carried by a waiter at a nice party? + Two, but there are ways around it, depending on the style of the hors d'oeuvre. If they're those little pastry things where you can't tell what's inside, you take one, bite off about two-thirds of it, then say: "This is cheese! I hate cheese!" Then you put the rest of it back on the tray and bite another one and go, "Darn it! Another cheese!" and so on. + -- Dave Barry, "The Stuff of Etiquette" +% +I am so optimistic about beef prices that I've just leased a pot roast with an option to buy. +% +I brake for chezlogs! +% +I couldn't remember when I had been so disappointed. Except perhaps the time I found out that M&Ms really DO melt in your hand. + -- Peter Oakley +% +I don't care for the Sugar Smacks commercial. I don't like the idea of a frog jumping on my Breakfast. + -- Lowell, Chicago Reader 10/15/82 +% +I don't care where I sit as long as I get fed. + -- Calvin Trillin +% +I don't even butter my bread. I consider that cooking. + -- Katherine Cebrian +% +I don't have an eating problem. I eat. I get fat. I buy new clothes. No problem. +% +"I don't like spinach, and I'm glad I don't, because if I liked it I'd eat it, and I just hate it." + -- Clarence Darrow +% +I have never been one to sacrifice my appetite on the altar of appearance. + -- A.M. Readyhough +% +I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals. + -- Thoreau +% +I just ate a whole package of Sweet Tarts and a can of Coke. I think I saw God. + -- B. Hathrume Duk +% +I never met a piece of chocolate I didn't like. +% +I never pray before meals -- my mom's a good cook. +% + "I thought you were trying to get into shape." + "I am. The shape I've selected is a triangle." +% +I'm hungry, time to eat lunch. +% +I've been on a diet for two weeks and all I've lost is two weeks. + -- Totie Fields +% +If at first you fricasee, fry, fry again. +% +If food be the music of love, eat up, eat up. +% +If puns were deli meat, this would be the wurst. +% +If you are what you eat, does that mean Euell Gibbons really was a nut? +% +If you put your supper dish to your ear you can hear the sounds of a restaurant. + -- Snoopy +% +If you see an onion ring -- answer it! +% +If you stew apples like cranberries, they taste more like prunes than rhubarb does. + -- Groucho Marx +% +If you waste your time cooking, you'll miss the next meal. +% +If you're going to America, bring your own food. + -- Fran Lebowitz, "Social Studies" +% +If your bread is stale, make toast. +% +In Mexico we have a word for sushi: bait. + -- Josi Simon +% +Is there life before breakfast? +% +It is a hard matter, my fellow citizens, to argue with the belly, since it has no ears. + -- Marcus Porcius Cato +% +IT MAKES ME MAD when I go to all the trouble of having Marta cook up about a hundred drumsticks, then the guy at Marineland says, "You can't throw that chicken to the dolphins. They eat fish." + +Sure they eat fish if that's all you give them! Man, wise up. + -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +It was a brave man that ate the first oyster. +% +It would be nice if the Food and Drug Administration stopped issuing warnings about toxic substances and just gave me the names of one or two things still safe to eat. + -- Robert Fuoss +% +It's raisins that make Post Raisin Bran so raisiny ... +% +It's so beautifully arranged on the plate -- you know someone's fingers have been all over it. + -- Julia Child on nouvelle cuisine. +% +Just a few of the perfect excuses for having some strawberry shortcake. Pick one. + + (1) It's less calories than two pieces of strawberry shortcake. + (2) It's cheaper than going to France. + (3) It neutralizes the brownies I had yesterday. + (4) Life is short. + (5) It's somebody's birthday. I don't want them to celebrate alone. + (6) It matches my eyes. + (7) Whoever said, "Let them eat cake." must have been talking to me. + (8) To punish myself for eating dessert yesterday. + (9) Compensation for all the time I spend in the shower not eating. + (10) Strawberry shortcake is evil. I must help rid the world of it. + (11) I'm getting weak from eating all that healthy stuff. + (12) It's the second anniversary of the night I ate plain broccoli. +% +Killing turkeys causes winter. +% +Kissing don't last, cookery do. + -- George Meredith +% +Kitchen activity is highlighted. Butter up a friend. +% +Last night I dreamed I ate a ten-pound marshmallow, and when I woke up the pillow was gone. + -- Tommy Cooper +% +Last week's pet, this week's special. +% +Let not the sands of time get in your lunch. +% +Life is like a bowl of soup with hairs floating on it. You have to eat it nevertheless. + -- Flaubert +% +"Life is like a buffet; it's not good but there's plenty of it." +% +Life is like a tin of sardines. We're, all of us, looking for the key. + -- Beyond the Fringe +% +Life is like an egg stain on your chin -- you can lick it, but it still won't go away. +% +Life is like an onion: you peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep. + -- Carl Sandburg +% +Life is like an onion: you peel off layer after layer and then you find there is nothing in it. + -- James Huneker +% +Life is too short to stuff a mushroom. + -- Storm Jameson +% +Life without caffeine is stimulating enough. + -- Sanka Ad +% +Living here in Rio, I have lots of coffees to choose from. And when you're on the lam like me, you appreciate a good cup of coffee. + -- "Great Train Robber" Ronald Biggs' coffee commercial +% +Lobster: + Everyone loves these delectable crustaceans, but many cooks are squeamish about placing them into boiling water alive, which is the only proper method of preparing them. Frankly, the easiest way to eliminate your guilt is to establish theirs by putting them on trial before they're cooked. The fact is, lobsters are among the most ferocious predators on the sea floor, and you're helping reduce crime in the reefs. Grasp the lobster behind the head, look it right in its unmistakably guilty eyestalks and say, "Where were you on the night of the 21st?", then flourish a picture of a +scallop or a sole and shout, "Perhaps this will refresh that crude neural apparatus you call a memory!" The lobster will squirm noticeably. It may even take a swipe at you with one of its claws. Incorrigible. Pop it into the pot. Justice has been served, and shortly you and your friends will be, too. + -- Dave Barry, "Cooking: The Art of Using Appliances and + Utensils into Excuses and Apologies" +% +Man who arrives at party two hours late will find he has been beaten to the punch. +% +MOCK APPLE PIE (No Apples Needed) + + Pastry to two crust 9-inch pie 36 RITZ Crackers +2 cups water 2 cups sugar +2 teaspoons cream of tartar 2 tablespoons lemon juice + Grated rind of one lemon Butter or margarine + Cinnamon + +Roll out bottom crust of pastry and fit into 9-inch pie plate. Break RITZ Crackers coarsely into pastry-lined plate. Combine water, sugar and cream of tartar in saucepan, boil gently for 15 minutes. Add lemon juice and rind. Cool. Pour this syrup over Crackers, dot generously with butter or margarine and sprinkle with cinnamon. Cover with top crust. Trim and flute edges together. Cut slits in top crust to let steam escape. Bake in a hot oven (425 F) 30 to 35 minutes, until crust is crisp and golden. Serve warm. Cut into 6 to 8 slices. + -- Found lurking on a Ritz Crackers box +% +Most people eat as though they were fattening themselves for market. + -- E.W. Howe +% +Mountain Dew and doughnuts... because breakfast is the most important meal of the day. +% +My doctor told me to stop having intimate dinners for four. Unless there are three other people. + -- Orson Welles +% +My favorite sandwich is peanut butter, baloney, cheddar cheese, lettuce and mayonnaise on toasted bread with catsup on the side. + -- Senator Hubert Humphrey +% +My weight is perfect for my height -- which varies. +% +Never drink coke in a moving elevator. The elevator's motion coupled with the chemicals in coke produce hallucinations. People tend to change into lizards and attack without warning, and large bats usually fly in the window. Additionally, you begin to believe that elevators have windows. +% +Never eat anything bigger than your head. +% +Never eat more than you can lift. + -- Miss Piggy +% +No man in the world has more courage than the man who can stop after eating one peanut. + -- Channing Pollock +% +Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love. + -- Charlie Brown +% +Now that you've read Fortune's diet truths, you'll be prepared the next time some housewife or boutique-owner-turned-diet-expert appears on TV to plug her latest book. And, if you still feel a twinge of guilt for eating coffee cake while listening to her exhortations, ask yourself the following questions: + + (1) Do I dare trust a person who actually considers alfalfa sprouts a food? + (2) Was the author's sole motive in writing this book to get rich exploiting the forlorn hopes of chubby people like me? + (3) Would a longer life be worthwhile if it had to be lived as prescribed ... without French-fried onion rings, pizza with double cheese, or the occasional Mai-Tai? (Remember, living right doesn't really make you live longer, it just *seems* like longer.) + +That, and another piece of coffee cake, should do the trick. +% +Peanut Blossoms + +4 cups sugar 16 tbsp. milk +4 cups brown sugar 4 tsp. vanilla +4 cups shortening 14 cups flour +8 eggs 4 tsp. soda +4 cups peanut butter 4 tsp. salt + +Shape dough into balls. Roll in sugar and bake on ungreased cookie sheet at 375 F. for 10-12 minutes. Immediately top each cookie with a Hershey's kiss or star pressing down firmly to crack cookie. Makes a heck of a lot. +% +Pete: Waiter, this meat is bad. +Waiter: Who told you? +Pete: A little swallow. +% +Peter's hungry, time to eat lunch. +% +Preserve wildlife -- pickle a squirrel today! +% +Prunes give you a run for your money. +% +Put a pot of chili on the stove to simmer. Let it simmer. Meanwhile, broil a good steak. Eat the steak. Let the chili simmer. Ignore it. + -- Recipe for chili from Allan Shrivers, former governor of Texas. +% +Put cats in the coffee and mice in the tea! +% +Remember, DESSERT is spelled with two `s's while DESERT is spelled with one, because EVERYONE wants two desserts, but NO ONE wants two deserts. + -- Miss Oglethorp, Gr. 5, PS. 59 +% +RULES OF EATING -- THE BRONX DIETER'S CREED + (1) Never eat on an empty stomach. + (2) Never leave the table hungry. + (3) When traveling, never leave a country hungry. + (4) Enjoy your food. + (5) Enjoy your companion's food. + (6) Really taste your food. It may take several portions to accomplish this, especially if subtly seasoned. + (7) Really feel your food. Texture is important. Compare, for example, the texture of a turnip to that of a brownie. Which feels better against your cheeks? + (8) Never eat between snacks, unless it's a meal. + (9) Don't feel you must finish everything on your plate. You can always eat it later. + (10) Avoid any wine with a childproof cap. + (11) Avoid blue food. + -- Richard Smith, "The Bronx Diet" +% +Sacred cows make great hamburgers. +% +Save gas, don't eat beans. +% +Seeing is deceiving. It's eating that's believing. + -- James Thurber +% +So much food; so little time! +% +Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk. + -- Thoreau +% +The basic menu item, in fact the ONLY menu item, would be a food unit called the "patty," consisting of -- this would be guaranteed in writing -- "100 percent animal matter of some kind." All patties would be heated up and then cooled back down in electronic devices immediately before serving. The Breakfast Patty would be a patty on a bun with lettuce, tomato, onion, egg, Ba-Ko-Bits, Cheez Whiz, a Special Sauce made by pouring ketchup out of a bottle and a little slip of paper stating: "Inspected by Number 12." The Lunch or Dinner Patty would be any Breakfast Patties that didn't get sold in the morning. The Seafood Lover's Patty would be any patties that were starting to emit a serious aroma. Patties that were too rank even to be Seafood Lover's Patties would be compressed into wads and sold as "Nuggets." + -- Dave Barry, "'Mister Mediocre' Restaurants" +% +The black bear used to be one of the most commonly seen large animals because in Yosemite and Sequoia national parks they lived off of garbage and tourist handouts. This bear has learned to open car doors in Yosemite, where damage to automobiles caused by bears runs into the tens of thousands of dollars a year. Campaigns to bearproof all garbage containers in wild areas have been difficult, because as one biologist put it, "There is a considerable overlap between the intelligence levels of the smartest bears and the dumbest tourists." +% +The chicken that clucks the loudest is the one most likely to show up at the steam fitters' picnic. +% +The cow is nothing but a machine which makes grass fit for us people to eat. + -- John McNulty +% + THE DAILY PLANET + + SUPERMAN SAVES DESSERT! + Plans to "Eat it later" +% +The early bird gets the coffee left over from the night before. +% +The History of every major Galactic Civilization tends to pass through three distinct and recognizable phases, those of Survival, Inquiry, and Sophistication, otherwise known as the How, Why, and Where phases. For instance, the first phase is characterized by the question "How can we eat?" the second by "Why do we eat?" and the third by "Where shall we have lunch?". + -- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy +% +The Kosher Dill was invented in 1723 by Joe Kosher and Sam Dill. It is the single most popular pickle variety today, enjoyed throughout the free world by man, woman and child alike. An astounding 350 billion kosher dills are eaten each year, averaging out to almost 1/4 pickle per person per day. New York Times food critic Mimi Sheraton says "The kosher dill really changed my life. I used to enjoy eating McDonald's hamburgers and drinking Iron City Lite, and then I encountered the kosher dill pickle. I realized that there was far more to haute cuisine then I'd ever imagined. And now, just look at me." +% +The men sat sipping their tea in silence. After a while the klutz said, + "Life is like a bowl of sour cream." + "Like a bowl of sour cream?" asked the other. "Why?" + "How should I know? What am I, a philosopher?" +% +The most exquisite peak in culinary art is conquered when you do right by a ham, for a ham, in the very nature of the process it has undergone since last it walked on its own feet, combines in its flavor the tang of smoky autumnal woods, the maternal softness of earthy fields delivered of their crop children, the wineyness of a late sun, the intimate kiss of fertilizing rain, and the bite of fire. You must slice it thin, almost as thin as this page you hold in your hands. The making of a ham dinner, like the making of a gentleman, starts a long, long time before the event. + -- W.B. Courtney, "Reflections of Maryland Country Ham", + from "Congress Eate It Up" +% +The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found. + -- Calvin Trillin +% +"The National Association of Theater Concessionaires reported that in 1986, 60% of all candy sold in movie theaters was sold to Roger Ebert." + -- D. Letterman +% +The number of feet in a yard is directly proportional to the success of the barbecue. +% +The number of licorice gumballs you get out of a gumball machine increases in direct proportion to how much you hate licorice. +% +The only thing better than love is milk. +% +The reason it's called "Grape Nuts" is that it contains "dextrose", which is also sometimes called "grape sugar," and also because "Grape Nuts" is catchier, in terms of marketing, than "A Cross Between Gerbil Food and Gravel," which is what it tastes like. + -- Dave Barry, "Tips for Writer's" +% +The scene: in a vast, painted desert, a cowboy faces his horse. + +Cowboy: "Well, you've been a pretty good hoss, I guess. Hardworkin'. Not the fastest critter I ever come acrost, but..." + +Horse: "No, stupid, not feed*back*. I said I wanted a feed*bag*. +% +The trouble with eating Italian food is that five or six days later you're hungry again. + -- George Miller +% +The way to a man's stomach is through his esophagus. +% +There are three possible parts to a date, of which at least two must be offered: entertainment, food, and affection. It is customary to begin a series of dates with a great deal of entertainment, a moderate amount of food, and the merest suggestion of affection. As the amount of affection increases, the entertainment can be reduced proportionately. When the affection IS the entertainment, we no longer call it dating. Under no circumstances can the food be omitted. + -- Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behaviour +% +There are times when truth is stranger than fiction and lunch time is one of them. +% +There are twenty-five people left in the world, and twenty-seven of them are hamburgers. + -- Ed Sanders +% +There is more simplicity in the man who eats caviar on impulse than in the man who eats Grape-Nuts on principle. + -- G.K. Chesterton +% +There is no sincerer love than the love of food. + -- George Bernard Shaw +% +There's always free cheese in a mousetrap. +% +There's nothing like the face of a kid eating a Hershey bar. +% +Thirteen at a table is unlucky only when the hostess has only twelve chops. + -- Groucho Marx +% +This is Betty Frenel. I don't know who to call but I can't reach my Food-a-holics partner. I'm at Vido's on my second pizza with sausage and mushroom. Jim, come and get me! +% +This is National Non-Dairy Creamer Week. +% + ... This striving for excellence extends into people's personal lives as well. When '80s people buy something, they buy the best one, as determined by (1) price and (2) lack of availability. Eighties people buy imported dental floss. They buy gourmet baking soda. If an '80s couple goes to a restaurant where they have made a reservation three weeks in advance, and they are informed that their table is available, they stalk out immediately, because they know it is not an excellent restaurant. If it were, it would have an enormous crowd of excellence-oriented people +like themselves waiting, their beepers going off like crickets in the night. An excellent restaurant wouldn't have a table ready immediately for anybody below the rank of Liza Minnelli. + -- Dave Barry, "In Search of Excellence" +% + To lose weight, eat less; to gain weight, eat more; if you merely wish to maintain, do whatever you were doing. + The Bronx diet is a legitimate system of food therapy showing that food SHOULD be used a crutch and which food could be the most effective in promoting spiritual and emotional satisfaction. For the first time, an eater could instantly grasp the connection between relieving depression and Mallomars, and understand why a lover's quarrel isn't so bad if there's a pint of ice cream nearby. + -- Richard Smith, "The Bronx Diet" +% +To see the butcher slap the steak, before he laid it on the block, and give his knife a sharpening, was to forget breakfast instantly. It was agreeable, too -- it really was -- to see him cut it off, so smooth and juicy. There was nothing savage in the act, although the knife was large and keen; it was a piece of art, high art; there was delicacy of touch, clearness of tone, skilful handling of the subject, fine shading. It was the triumph of mind over matter; quite. + -- Dickens, "Martin Chuzzlewit" +% +Tom's hungry, time to eat lunch. +% +Too Late + A large number of turkies [sic] went to San Francisco yesterday by the two o'clock boats. If their object in going down was to participate in the Thanksgiving festivities of that city, they would arrive "the day after the affair," and of course be sadly disappointed thereby. + -- Sacramento Daily Union, November 29, 1861 +% +Two peanuts were walking through the New York. One was assaulted. +% +Vegetables are what food eats. +Fruit are vegetables that fool you by tasting good. +Fish are fast moving vegetables. +Mushrooms are what grows on vegetables when food's done with them. + -- Meat Eater's Credo, according to Jim Williams +% +Vegeterians beware! You are what you eat. +% +Waiter: "Tea or coffee, gentlemen?" +1st customer: "I'll have tea." +2nd customer: "Me, too -- and be sure the glass is clean!" + (Waiter exits, returns) +Waiter: "Two teas. Which one asked for the clean glass?" +% +Wake up and smell the coffee. + -- Ann Landers +% +What foods these morsels be! +% +What is food to one, is to others bitter poison. + -- Titus Lucretius Carus +% +What is important is food, money and opportunities for scoring off one's enemies. Give a man these three things and you won't hear much squawking out of him. + -- Brian O'Nolan, "The Best of Myles" +% +When a person goes on a diet, the first thing he loses is his temper. +% +When all else fails, EAT!!! +% +When my brain begins to reel from my literary labors, I make an occasional cheese dip. + -- Ignatius Reilly +% + "When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet at last, "what's the first thing you say to yourself?" + "What's for breakfast?" said Pooh. "What do you say, Piglet?" + "I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?" said Piglet. + Pooh nodded thoughtfully. "It's the same thing," he said. +% +When you're dining out and you suspect something's wrong, you're probably right. +% +Where do you go to get anorexia? + -- Shelley Winters +% +While it may be true that a watched pot never boils, the one you don't keep an eye on can make an awful mess of your stove. + -- Edward Stevenson +% +Whoever tells a lie cannot be pure in heart -- and only the pure in heart +can make a good soup. + -- Ludwig Van Beethoven +% +Why do so many foods come packaged in plastic? It's quite uncanny. +% +Why do they call a fast a fast, when it goes so slow? +% +Without coffee he could not work, or at least he could not have worked in the way he did. In addition to paper and pens, he took with him everywhere as an indispensable article of equipment the coffee machine, which was no less important to him than his table or his white robe. + -- Stefan Zweigs, Biography of Balzac +% +Without ice cream life and fame are meaningless. +% +You can always tell the Christmas season is here when you start getting incredibly dense, tinfoil-and-ribbon- wrapped lumps in the mail. Fruitcakes make ideal gifts because the Postal Service has been unable to find a way to damage them. They last forever, largely because nobody ever eats them. In fact, many smart people save the fruitcakes they receive and send them back +to the original givers the next year; some fruitcakes have been passed back and forth for hundreds of years. + +The easiest way to make a fruitcake is to buy a darkish cake, then pound some old, hard fruit into it with a mallet. Be sure to wear safety glasses. + -- Dave Barry, "Simple, Homespun Gifts" +% +You don't sew with a fork, so I see no reason to eat with knitting needles. + -- Miss Piggy, on eating Chinese Food +% +You first parents of the human race... who ruined yourself for an apple, what might you have done for a truffled turkey? + -- Brillat-savarin, "Physiologie du Gout" +% +You know you have a small apartment when Rice Krispies echo. + -- S. Rickly Christian +% +You know you're a little fat if you have stretch marks on your car. + -- Cyrus, Chicago Reader 1/22/82 +% +You must dine in our cafeteria. You can eat dirt cheap there!!!! +% +You should tip the waiter $10, minus $2 if he tells you his name, another $2 if he claims it will be His Pleasure to serve you and another $2 for each "special" he describes involving confusing terms such as "shallots," and $4 if the menu contains the word "fixin's." In many restaurants, this means the waiter will actually owe you money. If you are traveling with a child aged six months to three years, you should leave an additional amount equal to twice the bill to compensate for the fact that they will have to take the banquette out and burn it because the cracks are wedged solid with gobbets made of partially chewed former restaurant rolls saturated with baby spit. + +In New York, tip the taxicab driver $40 if he does not mention his hemorrhoids. + -- Dave Barry, "The Stuff of Etiquette" +% +Your mind is the part of you that says, "Why'n'tcha eat that piece of cake?" ... and then, twenty minutes later, says, "Y'know, if I were you, I wouldn't have done that!" + -- Steven and Ondrea Levine +% diff --git a/data/etc/fortunes/Fortunes b/data/etc/fortunes/Fortunes new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..c9066f2cec --- /dev/null +++ b/data/etc/fortunes/Fortunes @@ -0,0 +1,892 @@ +A day for firm decisions!!!!! Or is it? +% +A few hours grace before the madness begins again. +% +A gift of a flower will soon be made to you. +% +A long-forgotten loved one will appear soon. + +Buy the negatives at any price. +% +A tall, dark stranger will have more fun than you. +% +A visit to a fresh place will bring strange work. +% +A visit to a strange place will bring fresh work. +% +A vivid and creative mind characterizes you. +% +Abandon the search for Truth; settle for a good fantasy. +% +Accent on helpful side of your nature. Drain the moat. +% +Advancement in position. +% +After your lover has gone you will still have PEANUT BUTTER! +% +Afternoon very favorable for romance. Try a single person for a change. +% +Alimony and bribes will engage a large share of your wealth. +% +All the troubles you have will pass away very quickly. +% +Among the lucky, you are the chosen one. +% +An avocado-tone refrigerator would look good on your resume. +% +An exotic journey in downtown Newark is in your future. +% +Another good night not to sleep in a eucalyptus tree. +% +Are you a turtle? +% +Are you ever going to do the dishes? Or will you change your major to biology? +% +Are you making all this up as you go along? +% +Are you sure the back door is locked? +% +Artistic ventures highlighted. Rob a museum. +% +Avert misunderstanding by calm, poise, and balance. +% +Avoid gunfire in the bathroom tonight. +% +Avoid reality at all costs. +% +Bank error in your favor. Collect $200. +% +Be careful! Is it classified? +% +Be careful! UGLY strikes 9 out of 10! +% +Be cautious in your daily affairs. +% +Be cheerful while you are alive. + -- Phathotep, 24th Century B.C. +% +Be different: conform. +% +Be free and open and breezy! Enjoy! Things won't get any better so get used to it. +% +Be security conscious -- National defense is at stake. +% +Beauty and harmony are as necessary to you as the very breath of life. +% +Best of all is never to have been born. Second best is to die soon. +% +Better hope the life-inspector doesn't come around while you have your life in such a mess. +% +Beware of a dark-haired man with a loud tie. +% +Beware of a tall black man with one blond shoe. +% +Beware of a tall blond man with one black shoe. +% +Beware of Bigfoot! +% +Beware of low-flying butterflies. +% +Beware the one behind you. +% +Blow it out your ear. +% +Break into jail and claim police brutality. +% +Bridge ahead. Pay troll. +% +Caution: breathing may be hazardous to your health. +% +Caution: Keep out of reach of children. +% +Celebrate Hannibal Day this year. Take an elephant to lunch. +% +Change your thoughts and you change your world. +% +Cheer Up! Things are getting worse at a slower rate. +% +Chess tonight. +% +Chicken Little only has to be right once. +% +Chicken Little was right. +% +Cold hands, no gloves. +% +Communicate! It can't make things any worse. +% +Courage is your greatest present need. +% +Day of inquiry. You will be subpoenaed. +% +Do not overtax your powers. +% +Do not sleep in a eucalyptus tree tonight. +% +Do nothing unless you must, and when you must act -- hesitate. +% +Do something unusual today. Pay a bill. +% +Do what comes naturally. Seethe and fume and throw a tantrum. +% +Domestic happiness and faithful friends. +% +Don't feed the bats tonight. +% +Don't get stuck in a closet -- wear yourself out. +% +Don't get to bragging. +% +Don't go surfing in South Dakota for a while. +% +Don't hate yourself in the morning -- sleep till noon. +% +Don't kiss an elephant on the lips today. +% +Don't let your mind wander -- it's too little to be let out alone. +% +Don't look back, the lemmings are gaining on you. +% +Don't look now, but the man in the moon is laughing at you. +% +Don't look now, but there is a multi-legged creature on your shoulder. +% +Don't plan any hasty moves. You'll be evicted soon anyway. +% +Don't read any sky-writing for the next two weeks. +% +Don't read everything you believe. +% +Don't relax! It's only your tension that's holding you together. +% +Don't tell any big lies today. Small ones can be just as effective. +% +Don't worry so loud, your roommate can't think. +% +Don't Worry, Be Happy. + -- Meher Baba +% +Don't worry. Life's too long. + -- Vincent Sardi, Jr. +% +Don't you feel more like you do now than you did when you came in? +% +Don't you wish you had more energy... or less ambition? +% +Everything that you know is wrong, but you can be straightened out. +% +Everything will be just tickety-boo today. +% +Excellent day for putting Slinkies on an escalator. +% +Excellent day to have a rotten day. +% +Excellent time to become a missing person. +% +Executive ability is prominent in your make-up. +% +Exercise caution in your daily affairs. +% +Expect a letter from a friend who will ask a favor of you. +% +Expect the worst, it's the least you can do. +% +Fine day for friends. +So-so day for you. +% +Fine day to work off excess energy. Steal something heavy. +% +Fortune: You will be attacked next Wednesday at 3:15 p.m. by six samurai sword-wielding purple fish glued to Harley-Davidson motorcycles. + +Oh, and have a nice day! + -- Bryce Nesbitt '84 +% +Future looks spotty. You will spill soup in late evening. +% +Generosity and perfection are your everlasting goals. +% +Give him an evasive answer. +% +Give thought to your reputation. Consider changing name and moving to a new town. +% +Give your very best today. Heaven knows it's little enough. +% +Go to a movie tonight. Darkness becomes you. +% +Good day for a change of scene. Repaper the bedroom wall. +% +Good day for overcoming obstacles. Try a steeplechase. +% +Good day to deal with people in high places; particularly lonely stewardesses. +% +Good day to let down old friends who need help. +% +Good news from afar can bring you a welcome visitor. +% +Good news. Ten weeks from Friday will be a pretty good day. +% +Good night to spend with family, but avoid arguments with your mate's +new lover. +% +Green light in A.M. for new projects. Red light in P.M. for traffic tickets. +% +Hope that the day after you die is a nice day. +% +If you can read this, you're too close. +% +If you learn one useless thing every day, in a single year you'll learn 365 useless things. +% +If you sow your wild oats, hope for a crop failure. +% +If you stand on your head, you will get footprints in your hair. +% +If you think last Tuesday was a drag, wait till you see what happens tomorrow! +% +If your life was a horse, you'd have to shoot it. +% +In the stairway of life, you'd best take the elevator. +% +Increased knowledge will help you now. Have mate's phone bugged. +% +Is that really YOU that is reading this? +% +Is this really happening? +% +It is so very hard to be an +on-your-own-take-care-of-yourself-because-there-is-no-one-else-to-do-it-for-you +grown-up. +% +It may or may not be worthwhile, but it still has to be done. +% +It was all so different before everything changed. +% +It's a very UNlucky week in which to be took dead. + -- Churchy La Femme +% +It's all in the mind, ya know. +% +It's lucky you're going so slowly, because you're going in the wrong direction. +% +Just because the message may never be received does not mean it is not worth sending. +% +Just to have it is enough. +% +Keep emotionally active. Cater to your favorite neurosis. +% +Keep it short for pithy sake. +% +Lady Luck brings added income today. Lady friend takes it away tonight. +% +Learn to pause -- or nothing worthwhile can catch up to you. +% +Let me put it this way: today is going to be a learning experience. +% +Life is to you a dashing and bold adventure. +% +"Life, loathe it or ignore it, you can't like it." + -- Marvin, "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" +% +Live in a world of your own, but always welcome visitors. +% +Living your life is a task so difficult, it has never been attempted before. +% +Long life is in store for you. +% +Look afar and see the end from the beginning. +% +Love is in the offing. Be affectionate to one who adores you. +% +Make a wish, it might come true. +% +Many changes of mind and mood; do not hesitate too long. +% +Never be led astray onto the path of virtue. +% +Never commit yourself! Let someone else commit you. +% +Never give an inch! +% +Never look up when dragons fly overhead. +% +Never reveal your best argument. +% +Next Friday will not be your lucky day. As a matter of fact, you don't have a lucky day this year. +% +Obviously the only rational solution to your problem is suicide. +% +Of course you have a purpose -- to find a purpose. +% +People are beginning to notice you. Try dressing before you leave the house. +% +Perfect day for scrubbing the floor and other exciting things. +% +Questionable day. + +Ask somebody something. +% +Reply hazy, ask again later. +% +Save energy: be apathetic. +% +Ships are safe in harbor, but they were never meant to stay there. +% +Slow day. Practice crawling. +% +Snow Day -- stay home. +% +So this it it. We're going to die. +% +So you're back... about time... +% +Someone is speaking well of you. +% +Someone is speaking well of you. + +How unusual! +% +Someone whom you reject today, will reject you tomorrow. +% +Stay away from flying saucers today. +% +Stay away from hurricanes for a while. +% +Stay the curse. +% +That secret you've been guarding, isn't. +% +The time is right to make new friends. +% +The whole world is a tuxedo and you are a pair of brown shoes. + -- George Gobel +% +There is a 20% chance of tomorrow. +% +There is a fly on your nose. +% +There was a phone call for you. +% +There will be big changes for you but you will be happy. +% +Things will be bright in P.M. A cop will shine a light in your face. +% +Think twice before speaking, but don't say "think think click click". +% +This life is yours. Some of it was given to you; the rest, you made yourself. +% +This will be a memorable month -- no matter how hard you try to forget it. +% +Time to be aggressive. Go after a tattooed Virgo. +% +Today is National Existential Ennui Awareness Day. +% +Today is the first day of the rest of the mess. +% +Today is the first day of the rest of your life. +% +Today is the last day of your life so far. +% +Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday. +% +Today is what happened to yesterday. +% +Today's weirdness is tomorrow's reason why. + -- Hunter S. Thompson +% +Tomorrow will be cancelled due to lack of interest. +% +Tomorrow, this will be part of the unchangeable past but fortunately, it can still be changed today. +% +Tomorrow, you can be anywhere. +% +Tonight you will pay the wages of sin; Don't forget to leave a tip. +% +Tonight's the night: Sleep in a eucalyptus tree. +% +Truth will out this morning. (Which may really mess things up.) +% +Try the Moo Shu Pork. It is especially good today. +% +Try to get all of your posthumous medals in advance. +% +Try to have as good a life as you can under the circumstances. +% +Try to relax and enjoy the crisis. + -- Ashleigh Brilliant +% +Try to value useful qualities in one who loves you. +% +Tuesday After Lunch is the cosmic time of the week. +% +Tuesday is the Wednesday of the rest of your life. +% +What happened last night can happen again. +% +While you recently had your problems on the run, they've regrouped and are making another attack. +% +Write yourself a threatening letter and pen a defiant reply. +% +You are a bundle of energy, always on the go. +% +You are a fluke of the universe; you have no right to be here. +% +You are a very redundant person, that's what kind of person you are. +% +You are always busy. +% +You are as I am with You. +% +You are capable of planning your future. +% +You are confused; but this is your normal state. +% +You are deeply attached to your friends and acquaintances. +% +You are destined to become the commandant of the fighting men of the department of transportation. +% +You are dishonest, but never to the point of hurting a friend. +% +You are fairminded, just and loving. +% +You are farsighted, a good planner, an ardent lover, and a faithful friend. +% +You are fighting for survival in your own sweet and gentle way. +% +You are going to have a new love affair. +% +You are magnetic in your bearing. +% +You are not dead yet. But watch for further reports. +% +You are number 6! Who is number one? +% +You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely. +% +You are scrupulously honest, frank, and straightforward. Therefore you have few friends. +% +You are sick, twisted and perverted. I like that in a person. +% +You are so boring that when I see you my feet go to sleep. +% +You are standing on my toes. +% +You are taking yourself far too seriously. +% +You are the only person to ever get this message. +% +You are wise, witty, and wonderful, but you spend too much time reading +this sort of trash. +% +You attempt things that you do not even plan because of your extreme stupidity. +% +You can create your own opportunities this week. Blackmail a senior executive. +% +You can do very well in speculation where land or anything to do with dirt is concerned. +% +You can rent this space for only $5 a week. +% +You could live a better life, if you had a better mind and a better body. +% +You definitely intend to start living sometime soon. +% +You dialed 5483. +% +You display the wonderful traits of charm and courtesy. +% +You don't become a failure until you're satisfied with being one. +% +You enjoy the company of other people. +% +You feel a whole lot more like you do now than you did when you used to. +% +You fill a much-needed gap. +% +You get along very well with everyone except animals and people. +% +You had some happiness once, but your parents moved away, and you had to leave it behind. +% +You have a deep appreciation of the arts and music. +% +You have a deep interest in all that is artistic. +% +You have a reputation for being thoroughly reliable and trustworthy. +A pity that it's totally undeserved. +% +You have a strong appeal for members of the opposite sex. +% +You have a strong appeal for members of your own sex. +% +You have a strong desire for a home and your family interests come first. +% +You have a truly strong individuality. +% +You have a will that can be influenced by all with whom you come in contact. +% +You have an ability to sense and know higher truth. +% +You have an ambitious nature and may make a name for yourself. +% +You have an unusual equipment for success. Be sure to use it properly. +% +You have an unusual magnetic personality. Don't walk too close to metal objects which are not fastened down. +% +You have an unusual understanding of the problems of human relationships. +% +You have been selected for a secret mission. +% +You have Egyptian flu: you're going to be a mummy. +% +You have had a long-term stimulation relative to business. +% +You have literary talent that you should take pains to develop. +% +You have many friends and very few living enemies. +% +You have no real enemies. +% +You have taken yourself too seriously. +% +You have the body of a 19 year old. Please return it before it gets wrinkled. +% +You have the capacity to learn from mistakes. You'll learn a lot today. +% +You have the power to influence all with whom you come in contact. +% +You learn to write as if to someone else because NEXT YEAR YOU WILL BE "SOMEONE ELSE." +% +You like to form new friendships and make new acquaintances. +% +You look like a million dollars. All green and wrinkled. +% +You look tired. +% +You love peace. +% +You love your home and want it to be beautiful. +% +You may be gone tomorrow, but that doesn't mean that you weren't here today. +% +You may be infinitely smaller than some things, but you're infinitely larger than others. +% +You may be recognized soon. Hide. +% +You may get an opportunity for advancement today. Watch it! +% +You may worry about your hair-do today, but tomorrow much peanut butter will be sold. +% +You need more time; and you probably always will. +% +You need no longer worry about the future. This time tomorrow you'll be dead. +% +You never hesitate to tackle the most difficult problems. +% +You never know how many friends you have until you rent a house on the beach. +% +You now have Asian Flu. +% +You own a dog, but you can only feed a cat. +% +You plan things that you do not even attempt because of your extreme caution. +% +You possess a mind not merely twisted, but actually sprained. +% +You prefer the company of the opposite sex, but are well liked by your own. +% +You recoil from the crude; you tend naturally toward the exquisite. +% +You seek to shield those you love and you like the role of the provider. +% +You shall be rewarded for a dastardly deed. +% +You should emulate your heros, but don't carry it too far. Especially +if they are dead. +% +You should go home. +% +You single-handedly fought your way into this hopeless mess. +% +You teach best what you most need to learn. +% +You too can wear a nose mitten. +% +You two ought to be more careful--your love could drag on for years and years. +% +You will always get the greatest recognition for the job you least like. +% +You will always have good luck in your personal affairs. +% +You will attract cultured and artistic people to your home. +% +You will be a winner today. Pick a fight with a four-year-old. +% +You will be advanced socially, without any special effort on your part. +% +You will be aided greatly by a person whom you thought to be unimportant. +% +You will be attacked by a beast who has the body of a wolf, the tail of a lion, and the face of Donald Duck. +% +You will be audited by the Internal Revenue Service. +% +You will be awarded a medal for disregarding safety in saving someone. +% +You will be awarded some great honor. +% +You will be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize... posthumously. +% +You will be called upon to help a friend in trouble. +% +You will be dead within a year. +% +You will be divorced within a year. +% +You will be given a post of trust and responsibility. +% +You will be held hostage by a radical group. +% +You will be honored for contributing your time and skill to a worthy cause. +% +You will be imprisoned for contributing your time and skill to a bank robbery. +% +You will be married within a year, and divorced within two. +% +You will be married within a year. +% +You will be misunderstood by everyone. +% +You will be recognized and honored as a community leader. +% +You will be reincarnated as a toad; and you will be much happier. +% +You will be run over by a beer truck. +% +You will be run over by a bus. +% +You will be singled out for promotion in your work. +% +You will be successful in love. +% +You will be surprised by a loud noise. +% +You will be surrounded by luxury. +% +You will be the last person to buy a Chrysler. +% +You will be the victim of a bizarre joke. +% +You will be Told about it Tomorrow. Go Home and Prepare Thyself. +% +You will be traveling and coming into a fortune. +% +You will be winged by an anti-aircraft battery. +% +You will become rich and famous unless you don't. +% +You will contract a rare disease. +% +You will engage in a profitable business activity. +% +You will experience a strong urge to do good; but it will pass. +% +You will feel hungry again in another hour. +% +You will forget that you ever knew me. +% +You will gain money by a fattening action. +% +You will gain money by a speculation or lottery. +% +You will gain money by an illegal action. +% +You will gain money by an immoral action. +% +You will get what you deserve. +% +You will give someone a piece of your mind, which you can ill afford. +% +You will have a long and boring life. +% +You will have a long and unpleasant discussion with your supervisor. +% +You will have domestic happiness and faithful friends. +% +You will have good luck and overcome many hardships. +% +You will have long and healthy life. +% +You will hear good news from one you thought unfriendly to you. +% +You will inherit millions of dollars. +% +You will inherit some money or a small piece of land. +% +You will live a long, healthy, happy life and make bags of money. +% +You will live to see your grandchildren. +% +You will lose your present job and have to become a door to door mayonnaise salesman. +% +You will meet an important person who will help you advance professionally. +% +You will never know hunger. +% +You will not be elected to public office this year. +% +You will obey or molten silver will be poured into your ears. +% +You will outgrow your usefulness. +% +You will overcome the attacks of jealous associates. +% +You will pass away very quickly. +% +You will pay for your sins. If you have already paid, please disregard this message. +% +You will pioneer the first Martian colony. +% +You will probably marry after a very brief courtship. +% +You will reach the highest possible point in your business or profession. +% +You will receive a legacy which will place you above want. +% +You will remember something that you should not have forgotten. +% +You will soon forget this. +% +You will soon meet a person who will play an important role in your life. +% +You will step on the night soil of many countries. +% +You will stop at nothing to reach your objective, but only because your brakes are defective. +% +You will triumph over your enemy. +% +You will visit the Dung Pits of Glive soon. +% +You will win success in whatever calling you adopt. +% +You will wish you hadn't. +% +You work very hard. Don't try to think as well. +% +You worry too much about your job. Stop it. You are not paid enough to worry. +% +You would if you could but you can't so you won't. +% +You'd like to do it instantaneously, but that's too slow. +% +You'll be called to a post requiring ability in handling groups of people. +% +You'll be sorry... +% +You'll feel devilish tonight. Toss dynamite caps under a flamenco dancer's heel. +% +You'll feel much better once you've given up hope. +% +You'll never be the man your mother was! +% +You'll never see all the places, or read all the books, but fortunately, +they're not all recommended. +% +You'll wish that you had done some of the hard things when they were easier +to do. +% +You're a card which will have to be dealt with. +% +You're almost as happy as you think you are. +% +You're at the end of the road again. +% +You're being followed. Cut out the hanky-panky for a few days. +% +You're currently going through a difficult transition period called "Life." +% +You're definitely on their list. The question to ask next is what list it is. +% +You're growing out of some of your problems, but there are others that you're growing into. +% +You're not my type. For that matter, you're not even my species!!! +% +You're ugly and your mother dresses you funny. +% +You're working under a slight handicap. You happen to be human. +% +You've been leading a dog's life. Stay off the furniture. +% +Your aim is high and to the right. +% +Your aims are high, and you are capable of much. +% +Your analyst has you mixed up with another patient. Don't believe a +thing he tells you. +% +Your best consolation is the hope that the things you failed to get weren't really worth having. +% +Your boss climbed the corporate ladder, wrong by wrong. +% +Your boss is a few sandwiches short of a picnic. +% +Your boyfriend takes chocolate from strangers. +% +Your business will assume vast proportions. +% +Your business will go through a period of considerable expansion. +% +Your depth of comprehension may tend to make you lax in worldly ways. +% +Your domestic life may be harmonious. +% +Your fly might be open (but don't check it just now). +% +Your goose is cooked. +(Your current chick is burned up too!) +% +Your heart is pure, and your mind clear, and your soul devout. +% +Your ignorance cramps my conversation. +% +Your life would be very empty if you had nothing to regret. +% +Your love life will be happy and harmonious. +% +Your love life will be... interesting. +% +Your lover will never wish to leave you. +% +Your lucky color has faded. +% +Your lucky number has been disconnected. +% +Your lucky number is 3552664958674928. Watch for it everywhere. +% +Your mode of life will be changed for the better because of good news soon. +% +Your mode of life will be changed for the better because of new developments. +% +Your motives for doing whatever good deed you may have in mind will be misinterpreted by somebody. +% +Your nature demands love and your happiness depends on it. +% +Your object is to save the world, while still leading a pleasant life. +% +Your own qualities will help prevent your advancement in the world. +% +Your present plans will be successful. +% +Your reasoning is excellent -- it's only your basic assumptions that are wrong. +% +Your reasoning powers are good, and you are a fairly good planner. +% +Your sister swims out to meet troop ships. +% +Your society will be sought by people of taste and refinement. +% +Your step will soil many countries. +% +Your supervisor is thinking about you. +% +Your talents will be recognized and suitably rewarded. +% +Your temporary financial embarrassment will be relieved in a surprising manner. +% +Your true value depends entirely on what you are compared with. +% diff --git a/data/etc/fortunes/Goedel b/data/etc/fortunes/Goedel new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..8aff9d897b --- /dev/null +++ b/data/etc/fortunes/Goedel @@ -0,0 +1,140 @@ +3M, under the Scotch brand name, manufactures a fine adhesive for art and display work. This product is called "Craft Mount". 3M suggests that to obtain the best results, one should make the bond "while the adhesive is wet, aggressively tacky." I did not know what "aggressively tacky" meant until I read today's fortune. + + [And who said we didn't offer equal time, huh? Ed.] +% + Answers to Last Fortune's Questions: + + (1) None. (Moses didn't have an ark). + (2) Your mother, by the pigeonhole principle. + (3) I don't know. + (4) Who cares? + (5) 6 (or maybe 4, or else 3). Mr. Alfred J. Duncan of Podunk, Montana, submitted an interesting solution to Problem 5. + (6) There is an interesting solution to this problem on page 1029 of my book, which you can pick up for $23.95 at finer bookstores and bathroom supply outlets (or 99 cents at the table in front of Papyrus Books). +% +Beware of computerized fortune-tellers! +% +By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote. In fact, it is as +difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to invent. + -- R. Emerson + -- Quoted from a fortune cookie program + (whose author claims, "Actually, stealing IS easier.") + [to which I reply, "You think it's easy for me to + misconstrue all these misquotations?!?" Ed.] +% +Chocolate chip. +% + DELETE A FORTUNE! +Don't some of these fortunes just drive you nuts?! +Wouldn't you like to see some of them deleted from the system? +You can! Just mail to `fortune' with the fortune you hate most, and we'll make sure it gets expunged. +% +Did you know about the -o option of the fortune program? It makes a selection from a set of offensive and/or obscene fortunes. Why not try it, and see how offended you are? The -a ("all") option will select a fortune at random from either the offensive or inoffensive set, and it is suggested that "fortune -a" is the command that you should have in your .profile or .cshrc. file. +% +Do not read this fortune under penalty of law. +Violators will be prosecuted. +(Penal Code sec. 2.3.2 (II.a.)) +% +For 20 dollars, I'll give you a good fortune next time ... +% +For some reason, this fortune reminds everyone of Marvin Zelkowitz. +% +Fortune's current rates: + + Answers .10 + Long answers .25 + Answers requiring thought .50 + Correct answers $1.00 + + Dumb looks are still free. +% +Generic Fortune. +% +Ginger snap. +% +Has anyone realized that the purpose of the fortune cookie program is to defuse project tensions? When did you ever see a cheerful cookie, a non-cynical, or even an informative cookie? + Perhaps inadvertently, we have a channel for our aggressions. This still begs the question of whether the cookie releases the pressure or only serves to blunt the warning signs. + + Long live the revolution! + Have a nice day. +% +Hi there! This is just a note from me, to you, to tell you, the person reading this note, that I can't think up any more famous quotes, jokes, nor bizarre stories, so you may as well go home. +% +I know you believe you understand what you think this fortune says, but I'm not sure you realize that what you are reading is not what it means. +% +If it's Tuesday, this must be someone else's fortune. +% +If there are epigrams, there must be meta-epigrams. +% +If this fortune didn't exist, somebody would have invented it. +% +If you wish to live wisely, ignore sayings -- including this one. +% +Ignore previous fortune. +% +In which level of metalanguage are you now speaking? +% +(null cookie; hope that's ok) +% +Oatmeal raisin. +% +Oreo. +% +Pardon this fortune. Database under reconstruction. +% +Pick another fortune cookie. +% +Please ignore previous fortune. +% +Since before the Earth was formed and before the sun burned hot in space, cosmic forces of inexorable power have been working relentlessly toward this moment in space-time -- your receiving this fortune. +% +Sorry, no fortune this time. +% +The fortune program is supported, in part, by user contributions and by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Inanities. +% +There is no such thing as fortune. Try again. +% +This fortune cookie program out of order. For those in desperate need, please use the program "randchar". This program generates random characters, and, given enough time, will undoubtedly come up with something profound. It will, however, take it no time at all to be more profound than THIS program has ever been. +% +This Fortune Examined By INSPECTOR NO. 2-14 +% +This fortune intentionally left blank. +% +This fortune intentionally not included. +% +This fortune intentionally says nothing. +% +This fortune is dedicated to your mother, without whose invaluable assistance last night would never have been possible. +% +This fortune is encrypted -- get your decoder rings ready! +% +This fortune is false. +% +This fortune is inoperative. Please try another. +% +This fortune soaks up 47 times its own weight in excess memory. +% +This fortune was brought to you by the people at Hewlett-Packard. +% +This fortune would be seven words long if it were six words shorter. +% +THIS IS PLEDGE WEEK FOR THE FORTUNE PROGRAM + +If you like the fortune program, why not support it now with your contribution of a pithy fortunes, clean or obscene? We cannot continue without your support. Less than 14% of all fortune users are contributors. That means that 86% of you are getting a free ride. We can't go on like this much longer. Federal cutbacks mean less money for fortunes, and unless user contributions increase to make up the difference, the fortune program will have to shut down between midnight and 8 a.m. Don't let this happen. Mail your fortunes right now to "fortune". Just type in your favorite pithy saying. Do it now before you forget. Our target is 300 new fortunes by the end of the week. Don't miss out. All fortunes will be acknowledged. If you contribute 30 fortunes or more, you will receive a free subscription to "The Fortune Hunter", our monthly program guide. If you contribute 50 or more, you will receive a free "Fortune Hunter" coffee mug .... +% +This is your fortune. +% +Vanilla wafer. +% +Very few profundities can be expressed in less than 80 characters. +% +WARNING: + Reading this fortune can affect the dimensionality of your mind, change the curvature of your spine, cause the growth of hair on your palms, and make a difference in the outcome of your favorite war. +% +We interrupt this fortune for an important announcement... +% +What does it mean if there is no fortune for you? +% +When you're not looking at it, this fortune is written in FORTRAN. +% +You will think of something funnier than this to add to the fortunes. +% diff --git a/data/etc/fortunes/Humorists b/data/etc/fortunes/Humorists new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..97ab5bdecc --- /dev/null +++ b/data/etc/fortunes/Humorists @@ -0,0 +1,646 @@ +A black cat crossing your path signifies that the animal is going somewhere. + -- Groucho Marx +% +A friend of mine is into Voodoo Acupuncture. You don't have to go. You'll just be walking down the street and... ooohh, that's much better. + -- Steven Wright +% +A large spider in an old house built a beautiful web in which to catch flies. Every time a fly landed on the web and was entangled in it the spider devoured him, so that when another fly came along he would think the web was a safe and quiet place in which to rest. One day a fairly intelligent fly buzzed around above the web so long without lighting that the spider appeared and said, "Come on down." But the fly was too clever for him and said, "I never light where I don't see other flies and I don't see any other flies in your house." So he flew away until he came to a place where there were a great many other flies. He was about to settle down among them when a bee buzzed up and said, "Hold it, stupid, that's flypaper. All those flies are trapped." "Don't be silly," said the fly, "they're dancing." So he settled down and became stuck to the flypaper with all the other flies. + +Moral: There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else. + -- James Thurber, "The Fairly Intelligent Fly" +% +A lot of people are afraid of heights. Not me. I'm afraid of widths. + -- Steven Wright +% + A MODERN FABLE + +Aesop's fables and other traditional children's stories involve allegory far too subtle for the youth of today. Children need an updated message with contemporary circumstance and plot line, and short enough to suit today's minute attention span. + + The Troubled Aardvark + +Once upon a time, there was an aardvark whose only pleasure in life was driving from his suburban bungalow to his job at a large brokerage house in his brand new 4x4. He hated his manipulative boss, his conniving and unethical co-workers, his greedy wife, and his snivelling, spoiled children. One day, the aardvark reflected on the meaning of his life and his career and on the unchecked, catastrophic decline of his nation, its pathetic excuse for leadership, and the complete ineffectiveness of any personal effort he could make to change the status quo. Overcome by a wave of utter depression and self-doubt, he decided to take the only course of action that would bring him greater comfort and happiness: he drove to the mall and bought imported consumer electronics goods. + +MORAL OF THE STORY: Invest in foreign consumer electronics manufacturers. + -- Tom Annau +% +A possum must be himself, and being himself he is honest. + -- Walt Kelly +% +"A power so great, it can only be used for Good or Evil!" + -- Firesign Theatre, "The Giant Rat of Summatra" +% + Accidents cause History. + +If Sigismund Unbuckle had taken a walk in 1426 and met Wat Tyler, the Peasant's Revolt would never have happened and the motor car would not have been invented until 2026, which would have meant that all the oil could have been used for lamps, thus saving the electric light bulb and the whale, and nobody would have caught Moby Dick or Billy Budd. + -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" +% +All men are mortal. Socrates was mortal. Therefore, all men are Socrates. + -- Woody Allen +% +All of the people in my building are insane. The guy above me designs synthetic hairballs for ceramic cats. The lady across the hall tried to rob a department store... with a pricing gun... She said, "Give me all of the money in the vault, or I'm marking down everything in the store." + -- Steven Wright +% +And now for something completely different. +% +And now for something completely the same. +% +"Are you sure you're not an encyclopedia salesman?" +No, Ma'am. Just a burglar, come to ransack the flat." + -- Monty Python +% +As the poet said, "Only God can make a tree" -- probably because it's so hard to figure out how to get the bark on. + -- Woody Allen +% +Being Ymor's right-hand man was like being gently flogged to death with scented bootlaces. + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Colour of Magic" +% +Bernard Shaw is an excellent man; he has not an enemy in the world, and none of his friends like him either. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +"Boy, life takes a long time to live." + -- Steven Wright +% +Bozo is the Brotherhood of Zips and Others. Bozos are people who band together for fun and profit. They have no jobs. Anybody who goes on a tour is a Bozo. Why does a Bozo cross the street? Because there's a Bozo on the other side. It comes from the phrase vos otros, meaning others. They're the huge, fat, middle waist. The archetype is an Irish drunk clown with red hair and nose, and pale skin. Fields, William Bendix. Everybody tends to drift toward Bozoness. It has Oz in it. They mean well. They're straight-looking except they've got inflatable shoes. They like their comforts. The Bozos have learned to enjoy their free time, which is all the time. + -- Firesign Theatre, "If Bees Lived Inside Your Head" +% +But I always fired into the nearest hill or, failing that, into blackness. I meant no harm; I just liked the explosions. And I was careful never to kill more than I could eat. + -- Raoul Duke +% +"But I don't like Spam!!!!" +% +"But I don't want to go on the cart..." +"Oh, don't be such a baby!" +"But I'm feeling much better..." +"No you're not... in a moment you'll be stone dead!" + -- Monty Python, "The Holy Grail" +% +Comedy, like Medicine, was never meant to be practiced by the general public. +% +Death didn't answer. He was looking at Spold in the same way as a dog looks at a bone, only in this case things were more or less the other way around. + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Colour of Magic" +% +Decorate your home. It gives the illusion that your life is more interesting than it really is. + -- C. Schulz +% +Do you think that when they asked George Washington for ID that he just whipped out a quarter? + -- Steven Wright +% +Don't take life so serious, son, it ain't nohow permanent. + -- Walt Kelly +% +Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia. + -- Charles Schulz +% +Early to rise, early to bed, makes a man healthy, wealthy and dead. + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic" +% +Eternal nothingness is fine if you happen to be dressed for it. + -- Woody Allen +% +Eternity is a terrible thought. I mean, where's it going to end? + -- Tom Stoppard +% +Ever since prehistoric times, wise men have tried to understand what, exactly, make people laugh. That's why they were called "wise men." All the other prehistoric people were out puncturing each other with spears, and the wise men were back in the cave saying: "How about: Would you please take my wife? No. How about: Here is my wife, please take her right now. No How about: Would you like to take something? My wife is available. No. How about ..." + -- Dave Barry, "Why Humor is Funny" +% +Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-eight million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea ... + -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" +% +Faster, faster, you fool, you fool! + -- Bill Cosby +% +First, a few words about tools. + +Basically, a tool is an object that enables you to take advantage of the laws of physics and mechanics in such a way that you can seriously injure yourself. Today, people tend to take tools for granted. If you're ever walking down the street and you notice some people who look particularly smug, the odds are that they are taking tools for granted. If I were you, I'd walk right up and smack them in the face. + -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw" +% +For my birthday I got a humidifier and a de-humidifier... I put them in the same room and let them fight it out. + -- Steven Wright +% +From the moment I picked your book up until I put it down I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it. + -- Groucho Marx, from "The Book of Insults" +% +God is a comic playing to an audience that's afraid to laugh. +% +He asked me if I knew what time it was -- I said yes, but not right now. + -- Steven Wright +% +"Here's something to think about: How come you never see a headline like `Psychic Wins Lottery'?" + -- Jay Leno +% +Hey, what do you expect from a culture that drives on parkways and parks on driveways? + -- Gallagher +% +High Priest: Armaments Chapter One, verses nine through twenty-seven: + +Bro. Maynard: And Saint Attila raised the Holy Hand Grenade up on high saying, "Oh Lord, Bless us this Holy Hand Grenade, and with it smash our enemies to tiny bits." And the Lord did grin, and the people did feast upon the lambs, and stoats, and orangutans, and breakfast cereals, and lima bean- + +High Priest: Skip a bit, brother. + +Bro. Maynard: And then the Lord spake, saying: "First, shalt thou take out the holy pin. Then shalt thou count to three. No more, no less. Three shall be the number of the counting, and the number of the counting shall be three. Fou* shalt thou not count, and neither count thou two, excepting that thou then goest on to three. Five is RIGHT OUT. Once the number three, being the third number be reached, then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade towards thy foe, who, being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it. Amen. + +All: Amen. + -- Monty Python, "The Holy Hand Grenade" +% +"Humor is a drug which it's the fashion to abuse." + -- William Gilbert +% +Humorists always sit at the children's table. + -- Woody Allen +% +I am a conscientious man, when I throw rocks at seabirds I leave no tern unstoned. + -- Ogden Nash, "Everybody's Mind to Me a Kingdom Is" +% +I am getting into abstract painting. Real abstract -- no brush, no canvas, I just think about it. I just went to an art museum where all of the art was done by children. All the paintings were hung on refrigerators. + -- Steven Wright +% +I am two with nature. + -- Woody Allen +% +I argue very well. Ask any of my remaining friends. I can win an argument on any topic, against any opponent. People know this, and steer clear of me at parties. Often, as a sign of their great respect, they don't even invite me. + -- Dave Barry +% +"I assure you the thought never even crossed my mind, lord." +"Indeed? Then if I were you I'd sue my face for slander." + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Colour of Magic" +% +I base my fashion taste on what doesn't itch. + -- Gilda Radner +% +I bought some used paint. It was in the shape of a house. + -- Steven Wright +% +I cannot overemphasize the importance of good grammar. + +What a crock. I could easily overemphasize the importance of good grammar. For example, I could say: "Bad grammar is the leading cause of slow, painful death in North America," or "Without good grammar, the United States would have lost World War II." + -- Dave Barry, "An Utterly Absurd Look at Grammar" +% +"I changed my headlights the other day. I put in strobe lights instead! Now when I drive at night, it looks like everyone else is standing still ..." + -- Steven Wright +% +I could dance with you till the cows come home. On second thought, I'd rather dance with the cows till you come home. + -- Groucho Marx +% +I don't deserve this award, but I have arthritis and I don't deserve that either. + -- Jack Benny +% +I don't get no respect. +% +I don't kill flies, but I like to mess with their minds. I hold them above globes. They freak out and yell "Whooa, I'm *way* too high." + -- Bruce Baum +% +I don't want to live on in my work, I want to live on in my apartment. + -- Woody Allen +% +I finally went to the eye doctor. I got contacts. I only need them to read, so I got flip-ups. + -- Steven Wright +% +"I got into an elevator at work and this man followed in after me... I pushed '1' and he just stood there... I said 'Hi, where you going?' He said, 'Phoenix.' So I pushed Phoenix. A few seconds later the doors opened, two tumbleweeds blew in... we were in downtown Phoenix. I looked at him and said 'You know, you're the kind of guy I want to hang around with.' We got into his car and drove out to his shack in the desert. Then the phone rang. He said 'You get it.' I picked it up and said 'Hello?'... the other side said 'Is this Steven Wright?'... I said 'Yes...' The guy said 'Hi, I'm Mr. Jones, the student loan director from your bank... It seems you have missed your last 17 payments, and the university you attended said that they received none of the $17,000 we loaned you... we would just like to know what happened to the money?' I said, 'Mr. Jones, I'll give it to you straight. I gave all of the money to my friend Slick, and with it he built a nuclear weapon... and I would appreciate it if you never called me again." + -- Steven Wright +% +I got my driver's license photo taken out of focus on purpose. Now when I get pulled over the cop looks at it (moving it nearer and farther, trying to see it clearly)... and says, "Here, you can go." + -- Steven Wright +% +I got this powdered water -- now I don't know what to add. + -- Steven Wright +% +I got tired of listening to the recording on the phone at the movie theater, so I bought the album. + -- Steven Wright +% + I got kicked out of a theater the other day for bringing my own food in. I argued that the concession stand prices were outrageous. Besides, I hadn't had a barbecue in a long time. + -- Steven Wright +% +I went to the theater and the sign said adults $5 children $2.50. I told them I wanted 2 boys and a girl. + -- Steven Wright +% +I once took a cab to a drive-in movie. The movie cost me $95. + -- Steven Wright +% +I had no shoes and I pitied myself. Then I met a man who had no feet, so I took his shoes. + -- Dave Barry +% +I hate it when my foot falls asleep during the day cause that means it's going to be up all night. + -- Steven Wright +% +I have a box of telephone rings under my bed. Whenever I get lonely, I open it up a little bit, and I get a phone call. One day I dropped the box all over the floor. The phone wouldn't stop ringing. I had to get it disconnected. So I got a new phone. I didn't have much money, so I had to get an irregular. It doesn't have a five. I ran into a friend of mine on the street the other day. He said why don't you give me a call. I told him I can't call everybody I want to anymore, my phone doesn't have a five. He asked how long had it been that way. I said I didn't know -- my calendar doesn't have any sevens. + -- Steven Wright +% +I have a dog; I named him Stay. So when I'd go to call him, I'd say, "Here, Stay, here..." but he got wise to that. Now when I call him he ignores me and just keeps on typing. + -- Steven Wright +% +I have a friend whose a billionaire. He invented Cliff's notes. When I asked him how he got such a great idea he said, "Well first I... I just... to make a long story short..." + -- Steven Wright +% +I have a hobby. I have the world's largest collection of sea shells. I keep it scattered on beaches all over the world. Maybe you've seen some of it. + -- Steven Wright +% +I have a map of the United States. It's actual size. I spent last summer folding it. People ask me where I live, and I say, "E6". + -- Steven Wright +% +I have a rock garden. Last week three of them died. + -- Richard Diran +% +I have a switch in my apartment that doesn't do anything. Every once in a while I turn it on and off. On and off. On and off. One day I got a call from a woman in France who said "Cut it out!" + -- Steven Wright +% +I have an existential map. It has "You are here" written all over it. + -- Steven Wright +% +I just got out of the hospital after a speed reading accident. I hit a bookmark. + -- Steven Wright +% +I know the answer! The answer lies within the heart of all mankind! The answer is twelve? I think I'm in the wrong building. + -- Charles Schulz +% +I look at life as being cruise director on the Titanic. I may not get there, but I'm going first class. + -- Art Buchwald +% +"I love Saturday morning cartoons, what classic humour! This is what entertainment is all about ... Idiots, explosives and falling anvils." + -- Calvin and Hobbes, Bill Watterson +% +I met my latest girl friend in a department store. She was looking at clothes, and I was putting Slinkys on the escalators. + -- Steven Wright +% +I never forget a face, but in your case I'll make an exception. + -- Groucho Marx +% +I poured spot remover on my dog. Now he's gone. + -- Steven Wright +% +I put contact lenses in my dog's eyes. They had little pictures of cats on them. Then I took one out and he ran around in circles. + -- Steven Wright +% +I put instant coffee in a microwave and almost went back in time. + -- Steven Wright +% +"I said I hope it is a good party," said Galder, loudly. +"AT THE MOMENT IT IS," said Death levelly. "I THINK IT MIGHT GO DOWNHILL VERY QUICKLY AT MIDNIGHT." +"Why?" +"THAT'S WHEN THEY THINK I'LL BE TAKING MY MASK OFF." + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic" +% +I saw a subliminal advertising executive, but only for a second. + -- Steven Wright +% +I should have been a country-western singer. After all, I'm older than most western countries. + -- George Burns +% +I sold my memoirs of my love life to Parker Brothers -- they're going to make a game out of it. + -- Woody Allen +% +I stayed up all night playing poker with tarot cards. I got a full house and four people died. + -- Steven Wright +% +I suggest you locate your hot tub outside your house, so it won't do too much damage if it catches fire or explodes. First you decide which direction your hot tub should face for maximum solar energy. After much trial and error, I have found that the best direction for a hot tub to face is up. + -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw" +% +I tell ya, gambling never agreed with me. Last week I went to the track and they shot my horse with the opening gun. + -- Rodney Dangerfield +% +Well, just last week I was at a Chinese restaurant and when I opened my fortune cookie I found the guy's check sitting at the next table. I said, "Hey, buddy, I got your check", he said, "Thanks." + -- Rodney Dangerfield +% +I think we're all Bozos on this bus. + -- Firesign Theatre +% +I thought there was something fishy about the butler. Probably a Pisces, working for scale. + -- Firesign Theatre, "The Further Adventures of Nick Danger" +% +I took a course in speed reading and was able to read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It's about Russia. + -- Woody Allen +% +I turned my air conditioner the other way around, and it got cold out. The weatherman said "I don't understand it. I was supposed to be 80 degrees today," and I said "Oops." + -- Steven Wright +% +In my house on the ceilings I have paintings of the rooms above... so I never have to go upstairs. + -- Steven Wright +% +I just bought a microwave fireplace... You can spend an evening in front of it in only eight minutes. + -- Steven Wright +% +I used to live in a house by the freeway. When I went anywhere, I had to be going 65 MPH by the end of my driveway. + -- Steven Wright +% +I was pulled over for speeding today. The officer said, "Don't you know the speed limit is 55 miles an hour?" And I said, "Yes, but I wasn't going to be out that long." + -- Steven Wright +% +I put a new engine in my car, but didn't take the old one out. Now my car goes 500 miles an hour. + -- Steven Wright +% +I used to work in a fire hydrant factory. You couldn't park anywhere near the place. + -- Steven Wright +% +I was at this restaurant. The sign said "Breakfast Anytime." So I ordered French Toast in the Rennaissance. + -- Steven Wright +% +I was in a bar and I walked up to a beautiful woman and said, "Do you live around here often?" She said, "You're wearing two different-color socks." I said, "Yes, but to me they're the same because I go by thickness." She said, "How do you feel?" And I said, "You know when you're sitting on a chair and you lean back so you're just on two legs and you lean too far so you almost fall over but at the last second you catch yourself? I feel like that all the time..." + -- Steven Wright, "Gentlemen's Quarterly" +% +I was in Vegas last week. I was at the roulette table, having a lengthy argument about what I considered an Odd number. + -- Steven Wright +% +I was the best I ever had. + -- Woody Allen +% +"I went into a general store, and they wouldn't sell me anything specific". + -- Steven Wright +% +"I went to a job interview the other day, the guy asked me if I had any questions. I said, "Yes, just one. If you're in a car traveling at the speed of light and you turn your headlights on, does anything happen? He said he couldn't answer that, I told him sorry, but I couldn't work for him then. + -- Steven Wright +% +"I went to the museum where they had all the heads and arms from the statues that are in all the other museums." + -- Steven Wright +% +I woke up this morning and discovered that everything in my apartment had been stolen and replaced with an exact replica. I told my roommate, "Isn't this amazing? Everything in the apartment has been stolen and +replaced with an exact replica." He said, "Do I know you?" + -- Steven Wright +% +I worked in a health food store once. A guy came in and asked me, "If I melt dry ice, can I take a bath without getting wet?" + -- Steven Wright +% +I'd horsewhip you if I had a horse. + -- Groucho Marx +% +I'd like to be buried Indian-style -- where they put you up on a high rack above the ground. That way, you could get hit by meteorites and not even feel it. + -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +I'd never join any club that would have the likes of me as a member. + -- Groucho Marx +% +I'll be comfortable on the couch. Famous last words. + -- Lenny Bruce +% +I'm going to Boston to see my doctor. He's a very sick man. + -- Fred Allen +% +I'm going to give my psychoanalyst one more year, then I'm going to Lourdes. + -- Woody Allen +% +I'm going to live forever, or die trying! + -- Spider Robinson +% +I'm not afraid of death -- I just don't want to be there when it happens. + -- Woody Allen +% +I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it. + -- Groucho Marx +% +If God had wanted us to be concerned for the plight of the toads, he would have made them cute and furry. + -- Dave Barry +% +If only Dionysus were alive! Where would he eat? + -- Woody Allen +% +If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name at a Swiss bank. + -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers" +% +If you live to the age of a hundred you have it made because very few people die past the age of a hundred. + -- George Burns +% +If you throw a New Year's Party, the worst thing that you can do would be to throw the kind of party where your guests wake up today, and call you to say they had a nice time. Now you'll be be expected to throw another party next year. + What you should do is throw the kind of party where your guest wake up several days from now and call their lawyers to find out if they've been indicted for anything. You want your guests to be so anxious to avoid a recurrence of your party that they immediately start planning parties of their own, a year in advance, just to prevent you from having another one ... + If your party is successful, the police will knock on your door, unless your party is very successful in which case they will lob tear gas through your living room window. As host, your job is to make sure that +they don't arrest anybody. Or if they're dead set on arresting someone, your job is to make sure it isn't you... + -- Dave Barry +% +If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans. + -- Woody Allen +% +If you've done six impossible things before breakfast, why not round it off with dinner at Milliway's, the restaurant at the end of the universe? + -- Douglas Adams, "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe" +% +In like a dimwit, out like a light. + -- Pogo +% +Is it weird in here, or is it just me? + -- Steven Wright +% +It is an important and popular fact that things are not always what they seem. For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much -- the wheel, New York, wars and so on -- whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more +intelligent than man -- for precisely the same reasons. + +Curiously enough, the dolphins had long known of the impending destruction of the of the planet Earth and had made many attempts to alert mankind to the danger; but most of their communications were misinterpreted ... + -- Douglas Admas "The Hitchhikers' Guide To The Galaxy" +% +It is impossible to experience one's death objectively and still carry a tune. + -- Woody Allen +% +It isn't necessary to have relatives in Kansas City in order to be unhappy. + -- Groucho Marx +% +It looked like something resembling white marble, which was probably what it was: something resembling white marble. + -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" +% +It's a small world, but I wouldn't want to have to paint it. + -- Steven Wright +% +It's hard to get ivory in Africa, but in Alabama the Tuscaloosa. + -- Groucho Marx +% +It's not that I'm afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it happens. + -- Woody Allen +% +Last night the power went out. Good thing my camera had a flash.... The neighbors thought it was lightning in my house, so they called the cops. + -- Steven Wright +% +Last year we drove across the country. We switched on the driving every half mile. We had one cassette tape to listen to on the entire trip. I don't remember what it was. + -- Steven Wright +% +Life is divided into the horrible and the miserable. + -- Woody Allen, "Annie Hall" +% +Life is wasted on the living. + -- The Restaurant at the Edge of the Universe. +% +Like you, I am frequently haunted by profound questions related to man's place in the Scheme of Things. Here are just a few: + + Q -- Is there life after death? + A -- Definitely. I speak from personal experience here. On New Year's Eve, 1970, I drank a full pitcher of a drink called "Black Russian", then crawled out on the lawn and died within a matter of minutes, which was fine with me because I had come to realize that if I had lived I would have spent the rest of my life in the grip of the most excruciatingly painful headache. Thanks to the miracle of modern orange juice, I was brought back to life several days later, but in the interim I was definitely dead. I guess my main impression of the afterlife is that it isn't so bad as long as you keep the television turned down and don't try to eat any solid foods. + -- Dave Barry +% +Man 1: Ask me the what the most important thing in telling a good joke is. + +Man 2: OK, what is the most impo -- + +Man 1: TIMING! +% + "Many have seen Topaxci, god of the Red Mushroom, and they earn the name of shaman," he said. Some have seen Skelde, spirit of the smoke, and they are called sorcerers. A few have been privileged to see Umcherrel, the soul of the forest, and they are known as spirit masters, but none have seen a box with hundreds of legs that looked at them without eyes, and they are known as idio--" + The interruption was caused by a sudden screaming noise and a flurry of snow and sparks that blew the fire across the dark hut; there was a brief blurred vision and then the opposite wall was blasted aside and the apparition vanished. + There was a long silence. Then a slightly shorter silence. Then the old shaman said carefully, "You didn't just see two men go through upside down on a broomstick, shouting and screaming at each other, did you?" + The boy looked at him levelly. "Certainly not," he said. + The old man heaved a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness for that," he said. "Neither did I." + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic" +% +Many years ago in a period commonly know as Next Friday Afternoon, there lived a King who was very Gloomy on Tuesday mornings because he was so Sad thinking about how Unhappy he had been on Monday and how completely Mournful he would be on Wednesday.... + -- Walt Kelly +% +My brother sent me a postcard the other day with this big satellite photo of the entire earth on it. On the back it said: "Wish you were here". + -- Steven Wright +% +My friend has a baby. I'm writing down all the noises he makes so later I can ask him what he meant. + -- Steven Wright +% +Nirvana? That's the place where the powers that be and their friends hang out. + -- Zonker Harris +% +NOBODY EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION! +% +Now is the time for all good men to come to. + -- Walt Kelly +% + Obviously the subject of death was in the air, but more as something to be avoided than harped upon. + Possibly the horror that Zaphod experienced at the prospect of being reunited with his deceased relatives led on to the thought that they might just feel the same way about him and, what's more, be able to do something about helping to postpone this reunion. + -- Douglas Adams +% +One doesn't have a sense of humor. It has you. + -- Larry Gelbart +% +Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside a dog it's too dark to read. + -- Groucho Marx +% +Puns are little "plays on words" that a certain breed of person loves to spring on you and then look at you in a certain self-satisfied way to indicate that he thinks that you must think that he is by far the cleverest person on Earth now that Benjamin Franklin is dead, when in fact what you are thinking is that if this person ever ends up in a lifeboat, the other passengers will hurl him overboard by the end of the first day even if they have plenty of food and water. + -- Dave Barry, "Why Humor is Funny" +% +"Right now I'm having amnesia and deja vu at the same time." + -- Steven Wright +% +Rincewind formed a mental picture of some strange entity living in a castle made of teeth. It was the kind of mental picture you tried to forget. Unsuccessfully. + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic" +% +Romeo wasn't bilked in a day. + -- Walt Kelly, "Ten Ever-Lovin' Blue-Eyed Years With Pogo" +% +Showing up is 80% of life. + -- Woody Allen +% +Some of you ... may have decided that, this year, you're going to celebrate it the old-fashioned way, with your family sitting around stringing cranberries and exchanging humble, handmade gifts, like on "The Waltons". Well, you can forget it. If everybody pulled that kind of subversive stunt, the economy would collapse overnight. The government would have to intervene: it would form a cabinet-level Department of Holiday Gift-Giving, which would spend billions and billions of tax dollars to buy Barbie dolls and electronic games, which it would drop on the populace from Air Force jets, killing and maiming thousands. So, for the good of the nation, you should go along with the Holiday Program. This means you should get a large sum of money and go to a mall. + -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide" +% +Sometimes the beauty of the world is so overwhelming, I just want to throw back my head and gargle. Just gargle and gargle and I don't care who hears me because I am beautiful. + -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +Thank goodness modern convenience is a thing of the remote future. + -- Pogo, by Walt Kelly +% +The basic idea behind malls is that they are more convenient than cities. Cities contain streets, which are dangerous and crowded and difficult to park in. Malls, on the other hand, have parking lots, which are also dangerous and crowded and difficult to park in, but -- here is the big difference -- in mall parking lots, THERE ARE NO RULES. You're allowed to do anything. You can drive as fast as you want in any direction you want. I was once driving in a mall parking lot when my car was struck by a pickup truck being driven backward by a squat man with a tattoo that said "Charlie" on his forearm, who got out and explained to me, in great detail, why the accident was my fault, his reasoning being that he was violent and muscular, whereas I was neither. This kind of reasoning is legally valid in mall parking lots. + -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide" +% +The best cure for insomnia is to get a lot of sleep. + -- W. C. Fields +% +The best way to make a fire with two sticks is to make sure one of them is a match. + -- Will Rogers +% +The buffalo isn't as dangerous as everyone makes him out to be. Statistics prove that in the United States more Americans are killed in automobile accidents than are killed by buffalo. + -- Art Buchwald +% +The grand leap of the whale up the Fall of Niagara is esteemed, by all who have seen it, as one of the finest spectacles in nature. + -- Benjamin Franklin. +% + The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has a few things to say on the subject of towels. + Most importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a non-hitchhiker discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, washcloth, flask, gnat spray, space suit, etc., etc. Furthermore, the non-hitchhiker will then happily lend the hitchhiker any of these or a dozen other items that he may have "lost". After all, any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the Galaxy, struggle against terrible odds, win through and still know where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with. + -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" +% +The other day I... uh, no, that wasn't me. + -- Steven Wright +% +"The pyramid is opening!" +"Which one?" +"The one with the ever-widening hole in it!" + -- Firesign Theater, "How Can You Be In Two Places At Once When You're Not Anywhere At All" +% + The Three Major Kind of Tools + +1) Tools for hittings things to make them loose or to tighten them up or jar their many complex, sophisticated electrical parts in such a manner that they function perfectly. (These are your hammers, maces, bludgeons, and truncheons.) + +2) Tools that, if dropped properly, can penetrate your foot. (Awls) + +3) Tools that nobody should ever use because the potential danger is far greater than the value of any project that could possibly result. (Power saws, power drills, power staplers, any kind of tool that uses any kind of power more advanced than flashlight batteries.) + -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw" +% +There's no easy quick way out, we're gonna have to live through our whole lives, win, lose, or draw. + -- Walt Kelly +% +There's so much plastic in this culture that vinyl leopard skin is becoming an endangered synthetic. + -- Lily Tomlin +% +Things will get better despite our efforts to improve them. + -- Will Rogers +% +This land is full of trousers! +this land is full of mausers! +And pussycats to eat them when the sun goes down! + -- Firesign Theater +% +Time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so. + -- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy +% +Too bad you can't buy a voodoo globe so that you could make the earth spin real fast and freak everybody out. + -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +Twenty Percent of Zero is Better than Nothing. + -- Walt Kelly +% +We have met the enemy, and he is us. + -- Walt Kelly +% +We is confronted with insurmountable opportunities. + -- Walt Kelly, "Pogo" +% +What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists? In that case, I definitely overpaid for my carpet. + -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers" +% +What if nothing exists and we're all in somebody's dream? Or what's worse, what if only that fat guy in the third row exists? + -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers" +% +"What shall we do?" said Twoflower. + "Panic?" said Rincewind hopefully. He always held that panic was the best means of survival; back in the olden days, his theory went, people faced with hungry sabretoothed tigers could be divided very simply into those who panicked and those who stood there saying "What a magnificent brute!" and "Here, pussy." + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic" +% +What's another word for "thesaurus"? + -- Steven Wright +% +When I was crossing the border into Canada, they asked if I had any firearms with me. I said, "Well, what do you need?" + -- Steven Wright +% +When I was little, I went into a pet shop and they asked how big I'd get. + -- Rodney Dangerfield +% +When I woke up this morning, my girlfriend asked if I had slept well. I said, "No, I made a few mistakes." + -- Steven Wright +% +Where humor is concerned there are no standards -- no one can say what is good or bad, although you can be sure that everyone will. + -- John Kenneth Galbraith +% +Why is the alphabet in that order? Is it because of that song? + -- Steven Wright +% +Will Rogers never met you. +% +Winny and I lived in a house that ran on static electricity. If you wanted to run the blender, you had to rub balloons on your head. If you wanted to cook, you had to pull off a sweater real quick. + -- Steven Wright +% +Would you *really* want to get on a non-stop flight? + -- George Carlin +% +You can't have everything. Where would you put it? + -- Steven Wright +% + "You know, it's at times like this when I'm trapped in a Vogon airlock with a man from Betelgeuse and about to die of asphyxiation in deep space that I really wish I'd listened to what my mother told me when I was young!" +"Why, what did she tell you?" +"I don't know, I didn't listen." + -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" +% +You may already be a loser. + -- Form letter received by Rodney Dangerfield. +% +You'd better beat it. You can leave in a taxi. If you can't get a taxi, you can leave in a huff. If that's too soon, you can leave in a minute and a huff. + -- Groucho Marx +% +You're a good example of why some animals eat their young. + -- Jim Samuels to a heckler + +Ah, yes. I remember my first beer. + -- Steve Martin to a heckler + +When your IQ rises to 28, sell. + -- Professor Irwin Corey to a heckler diff --git a/data/etc/fortunes/Kids b/data/etc/fortunes/Kids new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..2f48bc47e4 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/etc/fortunes/Kids @@ -0,0 +1,506 @@ +A baby is an alimentary canal with a loud voice at one end and no responsibility at the other. +% +A baby is God's opinion that the world should go on. + -- Carl Sandburg +% +A child of five could understand this! Fetch me a child of five. +% +A kid'll eat the middle of an Oreo, eventually. +% +A little kid went up to Santa and asked him, "Santa, you know when I'm bad right?" And Santa says, "Yes, I do." The little kid then asks, "And you know when I'm sleeping?" To which Santa replies, "Every minute." So the little kid then says, "Well, if you know when I'm bad and when I'm good, then how come you don't know what I want for Christmas?" +% + A young married couple had their first child. Their original pride and joy slowly turned to concern however, for after a couple of years the child had never uttered any form of speech. They hired the best speech therapists, doctors, psychiatrists, all to no avail. The child simply refused to speak. One morning when the child was five, while the husband was reading the paper, and the wife was feeding the dog, the little kid looks up from his bowl and said, "My cereal's cold." + The couple is stunned. The man, in tears, confronts his son. "Son, after all these years, why have you waited so long to say something?". + Shrugs the kid, "Everything's been okay 'til now". +% +About the only thing we have left that actually discriminates in favor of the plain people is the stork. +% +Adam and Eve had many advantages, but the principal one was, that they escaped teething. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +Adopted kids are such a pain -- you have to teach them how to look like you ... + -- Gilda Radner +% + After watching an extremely attractive maternity-ward patient earnestly thumbing her way through a telephone directory for several minutes, a hospital orderly finally asked if he could be of some help. + "No, thanks," smiled the young mother, "I'm just looking for a name for my baby." + "But the hospital supplies a special booklet that lists hundreds of first names and their meanings," said the orderly. + "That won't help," said the woman, "my baby already has a first name." +% +And he climbed with the lad up the Eiffelberg Tower. "This," cried the Mayor, "is your town's darkest hour! The time for all Whos who have blood that is red to come to the aid of their country!" he said. "We've GOT to make noises in greater amounts! So, open your mouth, lad! For every voice counts!" Thus he spoke as he climbed. When they got to the top, the lad cleared his throat and he shouted out, "YOPP!" + And that Yopp... That one last small, extra Yopp put it over! Finally, at last! From the speck on that clover their voices were heard! They rang out clear and clean. And they elephant smiled. "Do you see what I mean?" They've proved they ARE persons, no matter how small. And their whole world was saved by the smallest of All!" + "How true! Yes, how true," said the big kangaroo. "And, from now on, you know what I'm planning to do? From now on, I'm going to protect them with you!" And the young kangaroo in her pouch said, "ME TOO! From the sun in the summer. From rain when it's fall-ish, I'm going to protect them. No matter how small-ish!" + -- Dr. Seuss "Horton Hears a Who" +% +Any father who thinks he's all important should remind himself that this country honors fathers only one day a year while pickles get a whole week. +% +Anyone who uses the phrase "easy as taking candy from a baby" has never tried taking candy from a baby. + -- Robin Hood +% +Are you a parent? Do you sometimes find yourself unsure as to what to say in those awkward situations? Worry no more... + + Are you sure you're telling the truth? Think hard. + Does it make you happy to know you're sending me to an early grave? + If all your friends jumped off the cliff, would you jump too? + Do you feel bad? How do you think I feel? + Aren't you ashamed of yourself? + Don't you know any better? + How could you be so stupid? + If that's the worst pain you'll ever feel, you should be thankful. + You can't fool me. I know what you're thinking. + If you can't say anything nice, say nothing at all. +% +Are you a parent? Do you sometimes find yourself unsure as to what to say in those awkward situations? Worry no more... + + Do as I say, not as I do. + Do me a favour and don't tell me about it. I don't want to know. + What did you do *this* time? + If it didn't taste bad, it wouldn't be good for you. + When I was your age... + I won't love you if you keep doing that. + Think of all the starving children in India. + If there's one thing I hate, it's a liar. + I'm going to kill you. + Way to go, clumsy. + If you don't like it, you can lump it. +% +Are you a parent? Do you sometimes find yourself unsure as to what to say in those awkward situations? Worry no more... + + Go away. You bother me. + Why? Because life is unfair. + That's a nice drawing. What is it? + Children should be seen and not heard. + You'll be the death of me. + You'll understand when you're older. + Because. + Wipe that smile off your face. + I don't believe you. + How many times have I told you to be careful? + Just beacuse. +% +Are you a parent? Do you sometimes find yourself unsure as to what to say in those awkward situations? Worry no more... + + Good children always obey. + Quit acting so childish. + Boys don't cry. + If you keep making faces, someday it'll freeze that way. + Why do you have to know so much? + This hurts me more than it hurts you. + Why? Because I'm bigger than you. + Well, you've ruined everything. Now are you happy? + Oh, grow up. + I'm only doing this because I love you. +% +Are you a parent? Do you sometimes find yourself unsure as to what to say in those awkward situations? Worry no more... + + When are you going to grow up? + I'm only doing this for your own good. + Why are you crying? Stop crying, or I'll give you something to cry about. + What's wrong with you? + Someday you'll thank me for this. + You'd lose your head if it weren't attached. + Don't you have any sense at all? + If you keep sucking your thumb, it'll fall off. + Why? Because I said so. + I hope you have a kid just like yourself. +% +Are you a parent? Do you sometimes find yourself unsure as to what to say in those awkward situations? Worry no more... + + You wouldn't understand. + You ask too many questions. + In order to be a man, you have to learn to follow orders. + That's for me to know and you to find out. + Don't let those bullies push you around. Go in there and stick up for yourself. + You're acting too big for your britches. + Well, you broke it. Now are you satisfied? + Wait till your father gets home. + Bored? If you're bored, I've got some chores for you. + Shape up or ship out. +% +Article the Third: + Where a crime of the kidneys has been committed, the accused should enjoy the right to a speedy diaper change. Public announcements and guided tours of the aforementioned are not necessary. + +Article the Fourth: + The decision to eat strained lamb or not should be with the "feedee" and not the "feeder". Blowing the strained lamb into the feeder's face should be accepted as an opinion, not as a declaration of war. + +Article the Fifth: + Babies should enjoy the freedom to vocalize, whether it be in church, a public meeting place, during a movie, or after hours when the lights are out. They have not yet learned that joy and laughter have to last a lifetime and must be conserved. + -- Erma Bombeck, "A Baby's Bill of Rights" +% +Beat your son every day; you may not know why, but he will. +% +Because we don't think about future generations, they will never forget us. + -- Henrik Tikkanen +% +Billy: Mom, you know that vase you said was handed down from generation to generation? +Mom: Yes? +Billy: Well, this generation dropped it. +% +Breast Feeding should not be attempted by fathers with hairy chests, since they can make the baby sneeze and give it wind. + -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" +% + Catching his children with their hands in the new, still wet, patio, the father spanked them. His wife asked, "Don't you love your children?" "In the abstract, yes, but not in the concrete." +% +Catproof is an oxymoron, childproof nearly so. +% +Children are like cats, they can tell when you don't like them. That's when they come over and violate your body space. +% +Children are natural mimics who act like their parents despite every effort to teach them good manners. +% +Children are unpredictable. You never know what inconsistency they're going to catch you in next. + -- Franklin P. Jones +% +Children begin by loving their parents. After a time they judge them. Rarely, if ever, do they forgive them. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +Children seldom misquote you. In fact, they usually repeat word for word what you shouldn't have said. +% +Children's talent to endure stems from their ignorance of alternatives. + -- Maya Angelou, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" +% +Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing. + -- Phyllis Diller + +There is no need to do any housework at all. After the first four years the dirt doesn't get any worse. + -- Quentin Crisp +% +Delusions are often functional. A mother's opinions about her children's beauty, intelligence, goodness, et cetera ad nauseam, keep her from drowning them at birth. +% +Do not handicap your children by making their lives easy. + -- Robert Heinlein +% +Fertility is hereditary. If your parents didn't have any children, neither will you. +% +For adult education nothing beats children. +% +For children with short attention spans: boomerangs that don't come back. +% +FORTUNE REMEMBERS THE GREAT MOTHERS: #5 + + "And, and, and, and, but, but, but, but!" + -- Mrs. Janice Markowsky, April 8, 1965 +% +FORTUNE REMEMBERS THE GREAT MOTHERS: #6 + + "Johnny, if you fall and break your leg, don't come running to me!" + -- Mrs. Emily Barstow, June 16, 1954 +% +Get Revenge! Live long enough to be a problem for your children! +% + -- Gifts for Children -- + +This is easy. You never have to figure out what to get for children, because they will tell you exactly what they want. They spend months and months researching these kinds of things by watching Saturday morning cartoon show advertisements. Make sure you get your children exactly what they ask for, even if you disapprove of their choices. If your child thinks he wants Murderous Bob, the Doll with the Face You Can Rip Right Off, you'd better get it. You may be worried that it might help to encourage your child's antisocial tendencies, but believe me, you have not seen antisocial tendencies until you've seen a child who is convinced that he or she did not get the right gift. + -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide" +% +Give a small boy a hammer and he will find that everything he encounters needs pounding. +% +Give your child mental blocks for Christmas. +% +Having children is like having a bowling alley installed in your brain. + -- Martin Mull +% +How sharper than a serpent's tooth is a sister's "See?" + -- Linus Van Pelt +% +"Humpf!" Humpfed a voice! "For almost two days you've run wild and insisted on chatting with persons who've never existed. Such carryings-on in our peaceable jungle! We've had quite enough of you bellowing bungle! And I'm here to state," snapped the big kangaroo, "That your silly nonsensical game is all through!" And the young kangaroo in her pouch said, "Me, too!" + "With the help of the Wickersham Brothers and dozens of Wickersham Uncles and Wickersham Cousins and Wickersham In-Laws, whose help I've engaged, You're going to be roped! And you're going to be caged! And, as for your dust speck... Hah! That we shall boil in a hot steaming kettle of Beezle-Nut oil!" + -- Dr. Seuss "Horton Hears a Who" +% +I BET WHEN NEANDERTHAL KIDS would make a snowman, someone would always end up saying, "Don't forget the thick heavy brows." Then they would get embarrassed because they remembered they had the big hunky brows too, and they'd get mad and eat the snowman. + -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +I called my parents the other night, but I forgot about the time difference. They're still living in the fifties. + -- Strange de Jim +% + I did some heavy research so as to be prepared for "Mommy, why is the sky blue?" + HE asked me about black holes in space. + (There's a hole *where*?) + + I boned up to be ready for, "Why is the grass green?" + HE wanted to discuss nature's food chains. + (Well, let's see, there's ShopRite, Pathmark...) + + I talked about Choo-Choo trains. + HE talked internal combustion engines. + (The INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE said, "I think I can, I think I can.") + + I was delighted with the video game craze, thinking we could compete as equals. + HE described the complexities of the microchips required to create the graphics. + + Then puberty struck. Ah, adolescence. + HE said, "Mom, I just don't understand women." + (Gotcha!) + -- Betty LiBrizzi, "The Care and Feeding of a Gifted Child" +% +I hate babies. They're so human. + -- H.H. Munro +% +I know what "custody" [of the children] means. "Get even." That's all custody means. Get even with your old lady. + -- Lenny Bruce +% +I love children. Especially when they cry -- for then someone takes them away. + -- Nancy Mitford +% +I opened the drawer of my little desk and a single letter fell out, a letter from my mother, written in pencil, one of her last, with unfinished words and an implicit sense of her departure. It's so curious: one can resist tears and "behave" very well in the hardest hours of grief. But then someone makes you a friendly sign behind a window... or one notices that a flower that was in bud only yesterday has suddenly blossomed... or a letter slips from a drawer... and everything collapses. + -- Letters From Colette +% +I tell ya, I was an ugly kid. I was so ugly that my dad kept the kid's picture that came with the wallet he bought. + -- Rodney Dangerfield +% +I told my kids, "Someday, you'll have kids of your own." One of them said, "So will you." + -- Rodney Dangerfield +% +I used to think I was a child; now I think I am an adult -- not because I no longer do childish things, but because those I call adults are no more mature than I am. +% +I was born because it was a habit in those days, people didn't know anything else ... I was not a Child Prodigy, because a Child Prodigy is a child who knows as much when it is a child as it does when it grows up. + -- Will Rogers +% +If a child annoys you, quiet him by brushing his hair. If this doesn't work, use the other side of the brush on the other end of the child. +% +If parents would only realize how they bore their children. + -- G.B. Shaw +% +If pregnancy were a book they would cut the last two chapters. + -- Nora Ephron, "Heartburn" +% +If the very old will remember, the very young will listen. + -- Chief Dan George +% +If you have never been hated by your child, you have never been a parent. + -- Bette Davis +% +If your mother knew what you're doing, she'd probably hang her head and cry. +% +Insanity is hereditary. You get it from your kids. +% +It is better to remain childless than to father an orphan. +% +It is no wonder that people are so horrible when they start life as children. + -- Kingsley Amis +% +It is so soon that I am done for, I wonder what I was begun for. + -- Epitaph, Cheltenham Churchyard +% +It must have been some unmarried fool that said "A child can ask questions that a wise man cannot answer"; because, in any decent house, a brat that starts asking questions is promptly packed off to bed. + -- Arthur Binstead +% +It now costs more to amuse a child than it once did to educate his father. +% +It's never too late to have a happy childhood. +% +Kids always brighten up a house; mostly by leaving the lights on. +% +Kids have *never* taken guidance from their parents. If you could travel back in time and observe the original primate family in the original tree, you would see the primate parents yelling at the primate teenager for sitting around and sulking all day instead of hunting for grubs and berries like dad primate. Then you'd see the primate teenager stomp up to his branch and slam the leaves. + -- Dave Barry, "Kids Today: They Don't Know Dum Diddly Do" +% +Lies! All lies! You're all lying against my boys! + -- Ma Barker +% +Life does not begin at the moment of conception or the moment of birth. It begins when the kids leave home and the dog dies. +% +Life is like a diaper -- short and loaded. +% +Maturity is only a short break in adolescence. + -- Jules Feiffer +% +May you have many beautiful and obedient daughters. +% +May you have many handsome and obedient sons. +% +MEMORIES OF MY FAMILY MEETINGS still are a source of strength to me. I remember we'd all get into the car -- I forget what kind it was -- and drive and drive. + +I'm not sure where we'd go, but I think there were some bees there. The smell of something was strong in the air as we played whatever sport we played. I remember a bigger, older guy whom we called "Dad." We'd eat some stuff or not and then I think we went home. + +I guess some things never leave you. + -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +Microwaves frizz your heir. +% +My boy is a mean kid. I came home the other day and saw him taping worms to the sidewalk, he sits there and watches the birds get hernias. Well, only last Christmas I gave him a BB gun and he gave me a sweatshirt with a bulls-eye on the back. + +I told my kids, "Someday, you'll have kids of your own." One of them said, "So will you." + -- Rodney Dangerfield +% +My family history begins with me, but yours ends with you. + -- Iphicrates +% +My mother loved children -- she would have given anything if I had been one. + -- Groucho Marx +% +My mother once said to me, "Elwood," (she always called me Elwood) "Elwood, in this world you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant." For years I tried smart. I recommend pleasant. + -- Elwood P. Dowde, "Harvey" +% +My mother wants grandchildren, so I said, "Mom, go for it!" + -- Sue Murphy +% +My mother was a test tube; my father was a knife. + -- Friday +% +My parents went to Niagara Falls and all I got was this crummy life. +% +Nature makes boys and girls lovely to look upon so they can be tolerated until they acquire some sense. + -- William Phelps +% +Never have children, only grandchildren. + -- Gore Vidal +% +Never lend your car to anyone to whom you have given birth. + -- Erma Bombeck +% +Never raise your hand to your children -- it leaves your midsection unprotected. + -- Robert Orben +% +Never trust a child farther than you can throw it. +% +No house is childproofed unless the little darlings are in straitjackets. +% +No matter how old a mother is, she watches her middle-aged children for signs of improvement. + -- Florida Scott-Maxwell +% +Nobody suffers the pain of birth or the anguish of loving a child in order for presidents to make wars, for governments to feed on the substance of their people, for insurance companies to cheat the young and rob the old. + -- Lewis Lapham +% + On this morning in August when I was 13, my mother sent us out pick tomatoes. Back in April I'd have killed for a fresh tomato, but in August they are no more rare or wonderful than rocks. So I picked up one and threw it at a crab apple tree, where it made a good *splat*, and then threw a tomato at my brother. He whipped one back at me. We ducked down by the vines, heaving tomatoes at each other. My sister, who was a good person, said, "You're going to get it." She bent over and kept on picking. + What a target! She was 17, a girl with big hips, and bending over, she looked like the side of a barn. + I picked up a tomato so big it sat on the ground. It looked like it had sat there a week. The underside was brown, small white worms lived in it, and it was very juicy. I stood up and took aim, and went into the windup, when my mother at the kitchen window called my name in a sharp voice. I had to decide quickly. I decided. + A rotten Big Boy hitting the target is a memorable sound, like a fat man doing a belly-flop. With a whoop and a yell the tomatoee came after faster than I knew she could run, and grabbed my shirt and was about to brain me when Mother called her name in a sharp voice. And my sister, who was a good person, obeyed and let go -- and burst into tears. I guess she knew that the pleasure of obedience is pretty thin compared with the pleasure of hearing a rotten tomato hit someone in the rear end. + -- Garrison Keillor, "Lake Wobegon Days" +% +One father is more than a hundred schoolmasters. + -- George Herbert +% +One of the disadvantages of having children is that they eventually get old enough to give you presents they make at school. + -- Robert Byrne +% +Only adults have difficulty with childproof caps. +% +Out of the mouths of babes does often come cereal. +% +Parents often talk about the younger generation as if they didn't have much of anything to do with it. +% +Please, Mother! I'd rather do it myself! +% +Reinhart was never his mother's favorite -- and he was an only child. + -- Thomas Berger +% +Remember that as a teenager you are in the last stage of your life when you will be happy to hear that the phone is for you. + -- Fran Lebowitz, "Social Studies" +% +Snow and adolescence are the only problems that disappear if you ignore them long enough. +% +Somewhere on this globe, every ten seconds, there is a woman giving birth to a child. She must be found and stopped. + -- Sam Levenson +% +Teach children to be polite and courteous in the home, and, when they grow up, they won't be able to edge a car onto a freeway. +% +Test-tube babies shouldn't throw stones. +% +That all men should be brothers is the dream of people who have no brothers. + -- Charles Chincholles, "Pensees de tout le monde" +% +The average income of the modern teenager is about 2 a.m. +% + The courtroom was pregnant (pun intended) with anxious silence as the judge solemnly considered his verdict in the paternity suit before him. Suddenly, he reached into the folds of his robes, drew out a cigar and ceremoniously handed it to the defendant. + "Congratulations!" declaimed the jurist. "You have just become a father!" +% +The denunciation of the young is a necessary part of the hygiene of older people, and greatly assists in the circulation of the blood. + -- Logan Pearsall Smith +% +The fact that boys are allowed to exist at all is evidence of a remarkable Christian forbearance among men. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +The first half of our lives is ruined by our parents and the second half by our children. + -- Clarence Darrow +% +The full impact of parenthood doesn't hit you until you multiply the number of your kids by thirty-two teeth. +% +The future is a myth created by insurance salesmen and high school counselors. +% +The good die young -- because they see it's no use living if you've got to be good. + -- John Barrymore +% +The idea is to die young as late as possible. + -- Ashley Montague +% +The modern child will answer you back before you've said anything. + -- Laurence J. Peter +% +"The only real way to look younger is not to be born so soon." + -- Charles Schulz, "Things I've Had to Learn Over and + Over and Over" +% +The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard. +% +The real reason large families benefit society is because at least a few of the children in the world shouldn't be raised by beginners. +% +The years of peak mental activity are undoubtedly between the ages of four and eighteen. At four we know all the questions, at eighteen all the answers. +% +"There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it." + -- C. S. Lewis, "The Chronicles of Narnia" +% +There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes. + -- Dr. Who +% +There's nothing wrong with teenagers that reasoning with them won't aggravate. +% +Toddlers are the stormtroopers of the Lord of Entropy. +% +Troubles are like babies; they only grow by nursing. +% + Two parent drops spent months teaching their son how to be part of the ocean. After months of training, the father drop commented to the mother drop, "We've taught our boy everything we know, he's fit to be tide." +% +We are all born charming, fresh and spontaneous and must be civilized before we are fit to participate in society. + -- Judith Martin, "Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly + Correct Behaviour" +% +We are the people our parents warned us about. +% +What really shapes and conditions and makes us is somebody only a few of us ever have the courage to face: and that is the child you once were, long before formal education ever got its claws into you -- that impatient, all-demanding child who wants love and power and can't get enough of either and who goes on raging and weeping in your spirit till at last your eyes are closed and all the fools say, "Doesn't he look peaceful?" It is those pent-up, craving children who make all the wars and all the horrors and all the art and all the beauty and discovery in +life, because they are trying to achieve what lay beyond their grasp before they were five years old. + -- Robertson Davies, "The Rebel Angels" +% +What's done to children, they will do to society. +% +When childhood dies, its corpses are called adults. + -- Brian Aldiss +% +When I was 16, I thought there was no hope for my father. By the time I was 20, he had made great improvement. +% +When you were born, a big chance was taken for you. +% +Why do they call it baby-SITTING when all you do is run after them? +% +Why not have an old-fashioned Christmas for your family this year? Just picture the scene in your living room on Christmas morning as your children open their old-fashioned presents. + +Your 11-year-old son: "What the heck is this?" + +You: "A spinning top! You spin it around, and then eventually it falls down. What fun! Ha, ha!" + +Son: "Is this a joke? Jason Thompson's parents got him a computer with two disk drives and 128 kilobytes of random-access memory, and I get this cretin TOP?" + +Your 8-year-old daughter: "You think that's bad? Look at this." + +You: "It's figgy pudding! What a treat!" + +Daughter: "It looks like goat barf." + -- Dave Barry, "Simple, Homespun Gifts" +% +You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for instance. + -- Franklin P. Jones +% +"You can't expect a mother to be with a small child all the time," Margaret Mead once remarked, with her usual good sense, but in 1978 she shocked feminists by snapping that women don't really have children to put them in day care twelve hours a day, either. + -- Caroline Bird, "The Two Paycheck Marriage" +% +You can't hug a child with nuclear arms. +% +Your responsibility as a parent is not as great as you might imagine. You need not supply the world with the next conqueror of disease or major motion picture star. If your child simply grows up to be someone who does not use the word "collectible" as a noun, you can consider yourself an unqualified success. + -- Fran Lebowitz, "Social Studies" +% +Youth is such a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children. + -- George Bernard Shaw +% +Youth is the trustee of posterity. +% +Youth is when you blame all your troubles on your parents; maturity is when you learn that everything is the fault of the younger generation. +% +Youth. It's a wonder that anyone ever outgrows it. +% diff --git a/data/etc/fortunes/Law b/data/etc/fortunes/Law new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..c71f544946 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/etc/fortunes/Law @@ -0,0 +1,656 @@ +A blind rabbit was hopping through the woods, tripping over logs and crashing into trees. At the same time, a blind snake was slithering through the same forest, with identical results. They chanced to collide head-on in a clearing. + "Please excuse me, sir, I'm blind and I bumped into you accidentally," apologized the rabbit. + "That's quite all right," replied the snake, "I have the same problem!" + "All my life I've been wondering what I am," said the rabbit, "Do you think you could help me find out?" + "I'll try," said the snake. He gently coiled himself around the rabbit. "Well, you're covered with soft fur, you have a little fluffy tail and long ears. You're... hmmm... you're probably a bunny rabbit!" + "Great!" said the rabbit. "Thanks, I really owe you one!" + "Well," replied the snake, "I don't know what I am, either. Do you suppose you could try and tell me?" + The rabbit ran his paws all over the snake. "Well, you're low, cold and slimey..." And, as he ran one paw underneath the snake, "and you have no balls. You must be an attorney!" +% +A certain old cat had made his home in the alley behind Gabe's bar for some time, subsisting on scraps and occasional handouts from the bartender. One evening, emboldened by hunger, the feline attempted to follow Gabe through the back door. Regrettably, only the his body had made it through when the door slammed shut, severing the cat's tail at its base. This proved too much for the old creature, who looked sadly at Gabe and expired on the spot. + Gabe put the carcass back out in the alley and went back to business. The mandatory closing time arrived and Gabe was in the process of locking up after the last customers had gone. Approaching the back door he was startled to see an apparition of the old cat mournfully holding its severed tail out, silently pleading for Gabe to put the tail back on its corpse so that it could go on to the kitty afterworld complete. + Gabe shook his head sadly and said to the ghost, "I can't. You know the law -- no retailing spirits after 2:00 AM." +% +A countryman between two lawyers is like a fish between two cats. + -- Ben Franklin +% +A doctor was stranded with a lawyer in a leaky life raft in shark-infested waters. The doctor tried to swim ashore but was eaten by the sharks. The lawyer, however, swam safely past the bloodthirsty sharks. "Professional courtesy," he explained. +% +A Dublin lawyer died in poverty and many barristers of the city subscribed to a fund for his funeral. The Lord Chief Justice of Orbury was asked to donate a shilling. "Only a shilling?" exclaimed the man. "Only a shilling to bury an attorney? Here's a guinea; go and bury twenty of them." +% +A friend of mine won't get a divorce, because he hates lawyers more than he hates his wife. +% + A housewife, an accountant and a lawyer were asked to add 2 and 2. + The housewife replied, "Four!". + The accountant said, "It's either 3 or 4. Let me run those figures through my spread sheet one more time." + The lawyer pulled the drapes, dimmed the lights and asked in a hushed voice, "How much do you want it to be?" +% +A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer. + -- Robert Frost +% + A lawyer named Strange was shopping for a tombstone. After he had made his selection, the stonecutter asked him what inscription he would like on it. "Here lies an honest man and a lawyer," responded the lawyer. + "Sorry, but I can't do that," replied the stonecutter. "In this state, it's against the law to bury two people in the same grave. However, I could put ``here lies an honest lawyer'', if that would be okay." + "But that won't let people know who it is" protested the lawyer. + "Certainly will," retorted the stonecutter. "people will read it and exclaim, "That's Strange!" +% +A Los Angeles judge ruled that "a citizen may snore with immunity in his own home, even though he may be in possession of unusual and exceptional ability in that particular field." +% + A Los Angeles judge ruled that "a citizen may snore with immunity in his own home, even though he may be in possession of unusual and exceptional ability in that particular field." +% + A man walked into a bar with his alligator and asked the bartender, "Do you serve lawyers here?". + "Sure do," replied the bartender. + "Good," said the man. "Give me a beer, and I'll have a lawyer for my 'gator." +% + A New York City judge ruled that if two women behind you at the movies insist on discussing the probable outcome of the film, you have the right to turn around and blow a Bronx cheer at them. +% +A New York City ordinance prohibits the shooting of rabbits from the rear of a Third Avenue street car -- if the car is in motion. +% +A Riverside, California, health ordinance states that two persons may not kiss each other without first wiping their lips with carbolized rosewater. +% +A small town that cannot support one lawyer can always support two. +% +According to Arkansas law, Section 4761, Pope's Digest: "No person shall be permitted under any pretext whatever, to come nearer than fifty feet of any door or window of any polling room, from the opening of the polls until the completion of the count and the certification of the returns." +% +According to Kentucky state law, every person must take a bath at least once a year. +% +After 35 years, I have finished a comprehensive study of European comparative law. In Germany, under the law, everything is prohibited, except that which is permitted. In France, under the law, everything is permitted, except that which is prohibited. In the Soviet Union, under the law, everything is prohibited, including that which is permitted. And in Italy, under the law, everything is permitted, especially that which is prohibited. + -- Newton Minow, Speech to the Association of American Law Schools, 1985 +% + After his Ignoble Disgrace, Satan was being expelled from Heaven. As he passed through the Gates, he paused a moment in thought, and turned to God and said, "A new creature called Man, I hear, is soon to be created." + "This is true," He replied. + "He will need laws," said the Demon slyly. + "What! You, his appointed Enemy for all Time! You ask for the right to make his laws?" + "Oh, no!" Satan replied, "I ask only that he be allowed to make his own." + It was so granted. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +An amendment to a motion may be amended, but an amendment to an amendment to a motion may not be amended. However, a substitute for an amendment to and amendment to a motion may be adopted and the substitute may be amended. + -- The Montana legislature's contribution to the English language. +% +An attorney was defending his client against a charge of first-degree murder. "Your Honor, my client is accused of stuffing his lover's mutilated body into a suitcase and heading for the Mexican border. Just north of Tijuana a cop spotted her hand sticking out of the suitcase. Now, I would like to stress that my client is *not* a murderer. A sloppy packer, maybe..." +% +An English judge, growing weary of the barrister's long-winded summation, leaned over the bench and remarked, "I've heard your arguments, Sir Geoffrey, and I'm none the wiser!" Sir Geoffrey responded, "That may be, Milord, but at least you're better informed!" +% +And then there was the lawyer that stepped in cow manure and thought he was melting... +% +Another day, another dollar. + -- Vincent J. Fuller, defense lawyer for John Hinckley, + upon Hinckley's acquittal for shooting President Ronald + Reagan. +% +Anti-trust laws should be approached with exactly that attitude. +% +Atlanta makes it against the law to tie a giraffe to a telephone pole or street lamp. +% +Attorney General Edwin Meese III explained why the Supreme Court's Miranda decision (holding that subjects have a right to remain silent and have a lawyer present during questioning) is unnecessary: "You don't have many suspects who are innocent of a crime. That's contradictory. If a person is innocent of a crime, then he is not a suspect." + -- U.S. News and World Report, 10/14/85 +% +Be frank and explicit with your lawyer ... it is his business to confuse the issue afterwards. +% +Behold the warranty -- the bold print giveth and the fine print taketh away. +% +Being a miner, as soon as you're too old and tired and sick and stupid to do your job properly, you have to go, where the very opposite applies with the judges. + -- Beyond the Fringe +% +Between grand theft and a legal fee, there only stands a law degree. +% +... but as records of courts and justice are admissible, it can easily be proved that powerful and malevolent magicians once existed and were a scourge to mankind. The evidence (including confession) upon which certain women were convicted of witchcraft and executed was without a flaw; it is still unimpeachable. The judges' decisions based on it were sound in logic and in law. Nothing in any existing court was ever more thoroughly proved than the charges of witchcraft and sorcery for which so many suffered death. If there were no witches, human testimony and human reason are alike destitute of value. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Carmel, New York, has an ordinance forbidding men to wear coats and trousers that don't match. +% +Certain passages in several laws have always defied interpretation and the most inexplicable must be a matter of opinion. A judge of the Court of Session of Scotland has sent the editors of this book his candidate which reads, "In the Nuts (unground), (other than ground nuts) Order, the expression nuts shall have reference to such nuts, other than ground nuts, as would but for this amending Order not qualify as nuts (unground) (other than ground nuts) by reason of their being nuts (unground)." + -- Guiness Book of World Records, 1973 +% +Chicago law prohibits eating in a place that is on fire. +% +Diogenes went to look for an honest lawyer. "How's it going?", someone asked him, after a few days. "Not too bad", replied Diogenes. "I still have my lantern." +% +District of Columbia pedestrians who leap over passing autos to escape injury, and then strike the car as they come down, are liable for any damage inflicted on the vehicle. +% +Divorce is a game played by lawyers. + -- Cary Grant +% +Doctors and lawyers must go to school for years and years, often with little sleep and with great sacrifice to their first wives. + -- Roy G. Blount, Jr. +% +Fights between cats and dogs are prohibited by statute in Barber, North Carolina. +% +First there was Dial-A-Prayer, then Dial-A-Recipe, and even Dial-A-Footballer. But the southeast Victorian town of Sale has produced one to top them all: Dial-A-Wombat. + +It all began early yesterday when Sale police received a telephone call: "You won't believe this, and I'm not drunk, but there's a wombat in the phone booth outside the town hall," the caller said. Not firmly convinced about the caller's claim to sobriety, members of the constabulary drove to the scene, expecting to pick up a drunk. But there it was, an annoyed wombat, trapped in a telephone booth. The wombat, determined not to be had the better of again, threw its bulk into the fray. It was eventually lassoed and released in a nearby scrub. + Then the officers received another message ... another wombat in another phone booth. There it was: *Another* angry wombat trapped in a telephone booth. The constables took the miffed marsupial into temporary custody and released it, too, in the scrub. But on their way back to the station they happened to pass another telephone booth, and -- you guessed it -- another imprisoned wombat. After some serious detective work, the lads in blue found a suspect, and after questioning, released him to be charged on summons. Their problem: they cannot find a law against placing wombats in telephone booths. + -- "Newcastle Morning Herald", NSW Australia, Aug 1980. +% +Fortune Documents the Great Legal Decisions: It is a rule of evidence deduced from the experience of mankind and supported by reason and authority that positive testimony is entitled to more weight than negative testimony, but by the latter term is meant negative testimony in its true sense and not positive evidence of a negative, because testimony in support of a negative may be as positive as that in support of an affirmative. + -- 254 Pac. Rep. 472. +% +Fortune Documents the Great Legal Decisions: We can imagine no reason why, with ordinary care, human toes could not be left out of chewing tobacco, and if toes are found in chewing tobacco, it seems to us that someone has been very careless. + -- 78 So. 365. +% +Fortune's Law of the Week (this week, from Kentucky): + No female shall appear in a bathing suit at any airport in this State unless she is escorted by two officers or unless she is armed with a club. The provisions of this statute shall not apply to females weighing less than 90 pounds nor exceeding 200 pounds, nor shall it apply to female horses. +% +Fortune's nomination for All-Time Champion and Protector of Youthful Morals goes to Representative Clare E. Hoffman of Michigan. During an impassioned House debate over a proposed bill to "expand oyster and clam research," a sharp-eared informant transcribed the following exchange between our hero and Rep. John D. Dingell, also of Michigan. + +DINGELL: There are places in the world at the present time where we are having to artificially propagate oysters and clams. +HOFFMAN: You mean the oysters I buy are not nature's oysters? +DINGELL: They may or may not be natural. The simple fact of the matter is that female oysters through their living habits cast out large amounts of seed and the male oysters cast out large amounts of fertilization ... +HOFFMAN: Wait a minute! I do not want to go into that. There are many teenagers who read The Congressional Record. +% +Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #19: + +Q: Doctor, how many autopsies have you performed on dead people? +A: All my autopsies have been performed on dead people. +% +Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #29: + +THE JUDGE: Now, as we begin, I must ask you to banish all present information and prejudice from your minds, if you have any ... +% +Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #37: + +Q: Did he pick the dog up by the ears? +A: No. +Q: What was he doing with the dog's ears? +A: Picking them up in the air. +Q: Where was the dog at this time? +A: Attached to the ears. +% +Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #3: + +Q: When he went, had you gone and had she, if she wanted to and were able, for the time being excluding all the restraints on her not to go, gone also, would he have brought you, meaning you and she, with him to the station? +MR. BROOKS: Objection. That question should be taken out and shot. +% +Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #41: + +Q: Now, Mrs. Johnson, how was your first marriage terminated? +A: By death. +Q: And by whose death was it terminated? +% +Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #52: + +Q: What is your name? +A: Ernestine McDowell. +Q: And what is your marital status? +A: Fair. +% +Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #7: + +Q: What happened then? +A: He told me, he says, "I have to kill you because you can identify me." +Q: Did he kill you? +A: No. +% +Frankfort, Kentucky, makes it against the law to shoot off a policeman's tie. +% +Getting kicked out of the American Bar Association is liked getting kicked out of the Book-of-the-Month Club. + -- Melvin Belli on the occcasion of his getting kicked out of the American Bar Association +% +God decided to take the devil to court and settle their differences once and for all. When Satan heard of this, he grinned and said, "And just where do you think you're going to find a lawyer?" +% +Good government never depends upon laws, but upon the personal qualities of those who govern. The machinery of government is always subordinate to the will of those who administer that machinery. The most important element of government, therefore, is the method of choosing leaders. + -- Frank Herbert, "Children of Dune" +% +He is no lawyer who cannot take two sides. +% +"Hi, I'm Preston A. Mantis, president of Consumers Retail Law Outlet. As you can see by my suit and the fact that I have all these books of equal height on the shelves behind me, I am a trained legal attorney. Do you have a car or a job? Do you ever walk around? If so, you probably have the makings of an excellent legal case. Although of course every case is different, I would definitely say that based on my experience and training, there's no reason why you shouldn't come out of this thing with at least a cabin cruiser. "Remember, at the Preston A. Mantis Consumers Retail Law Outlet, our motto is: 'It is very difficult to disprove certain kinds of pain.'" + -- Dave Barry, "Pain and Suffering" +% + Horses are forbidden to eat fire hydrants in Marshalltown, Iowa. +% +How do you insult a lawyer? + You might as well not even try. Consider: of all the highly trained and educated professions, law is the only one in which the prime lesson is that *winning* is more important than *truth*. + Once someone has sunk to that level, what worse can you say about them? +% +HR 3128. Omnibus Budget Reconciliation, Fiscal 1986. Martin, R-Ill., motion that the House recede from its disagreement to the Senate amendment making changes in the bill to reduce fiscal 1986 deficits. The Senate amendment was an amendment to the House amendment to the Senate amendment to the House amendment to the Senate amendment to the bill. The original Senate amendment was the conference agreement on the bill. Agreed to. + -- Albuquerque Journal +% +Humor in the Court: + +Q: Do you drink when you're on duty? +A: I don't drink when I'm on duty, unless I come on duty drunk. +% +Humor in the Court: + +Q. And lastly, Gary, all your responses must be oral. O.K.? What school do you go to? +A. Oral. +Q. How old are you? +A. Oral. +% +Humor in the Court: + +Q. And who is this person you are speaking of? +A. My ex-widow said it. +% +Humor in the Court: + +Q. Did you ever stay all night with this man in New York? +A. I refuse to answer that question. +Q. Did you ever stay all night with this man in Chicago? +A. I refuse to answer that question. +Q. Did you ever stay all night with this man in Miami? +A. No. +% +Humor in the Court: + +Q. Doctor, did you say he was shot in the woods? +A. No, I said he was shot in the lumbar region. +% +Humor in the Court: + +Q. Mrs. Jones, is your appearance this morning pursuant to a deposition notice which I sent to your attorney? +A. No. This is how I dress when I go to work. +% +Humor in the Court: + +Q. Mrs. Smith, do you believe that you are emotionally unstable? +A. I should be. +Q. How many times have you comitted suicide? +A. Four times. +% +Humor in the Court: + +Q. Officer, what led you to believe the defendant was under the influence? +A. Because he was argumentary and he couldn't pronunciate his words. +% +Humor in the Court: + +Q. Were you aquainted with the deceased? +A. Yes, sir. +Q. Before or after he died? +% +Humor in the Court: + +Q: (Showing man picture.) That's you? +A: Yes, sir. +Q: And you were present when the picture was taken, right? +% +Humor in the Court: + +Q: ...and what did he do then? +A: He came home, and next morning he was dead. +Q: So when he woke up the next morning he was dead? +% +Humor in the Court: + +Q: ...any suggestions as to what prevented this from being a murder trial instead of an attempted murder trial? +A: The victim lived. +% +Humor in the Court: + +Q: Could you see him from where you were standing? +A: I could see his head. +Q: And where was his head? +A: Just above his shoulders. +% +Humor in the Court: + +Q: Did you tell your lawyer that your husband had offered you indignities? +A: He didn't offer me nothing; he just said I could have the furniture. +% +Humor in the Court: + +Q: Now, you have investigated other murders, have you not, where there was a victim? +% +Humor in the Court: + +Q: So, after the anesthesia, when you came out of it, what did you observe with respect to your scalp? +A: I didn't see my scalp the whole time I was in the hospital. +Q: It was covered? +A: Yes, bandaged. +Q: Then, later on.. what did you see? +A: I had a skin graft. My whole buttocks and leg were removed and put on top of my head. +% +Humor in the Court: + +Q: The truth of the matter is that you were not an unbiased, objective witness, isn't it. You too were shot in the fracas? +A: No, sir. I was shot midway between the fracas and the naval. +% +Humor in the Court: + +Q: What is your relationship with the plaintiff? +A: She is my daughter. +Q: Was she your daughter on February 13, 1979? +% +I need another lawyer like I need another hole in my head. + -- Fratianno +% +I remember when legal used to mean lawful, now it means some kind of loophole. + -- Leo Kessler +% +I suppose some of the variation between Boston drivers and the rest of the country is due to the progressive Massachusetts Driver Education Manual which I happen to have in my top desk drawer. Some of the Tips for Better Driving are worth considering, to wit: + +[110.13]: "When traveling on a one-way street, stay to the right, so as not to interfere with oncoming traffic." + +[22.17b]: "Learning to change lanes takes time and patience. The best recommendation that can be made is to go to a Celtics [basketball] game; study the fast break and then go out and practice it on the highway." + +[41.16]: "Never bump a baby carriage out of a crosswalk unless the kid's really asking for it." +% +I suppose some of the variation between Boston drivers and the rest of the country is due to the progressive Massachusetts Driver Education Manual which I happen to have in my top desk drawer. Some of the Tips for Better Driving are worth considering, to wit: + +[131.16d]: "Directional signals are generally not used except during vehicle inspection; however, a left-turn signal is appropriate when making a U-turn on a divided highway." + +[96.7b]: "When paying tolls, remember that it is necessary to release the quarter a full 3 seconds before passing the basket if you are traveling more than 60 MPH." + +[110.13]: "When traveling on a one-way street, stay to the right, so as not to interfere with oncoming traffic." +% +I suppose some of the variation between Boston drivers and the rest of the country is due to the progressive Massachusetts Driver Education Manual which I happen to have in my top desk drawer. Some of the Tips for Better Driving are worth considering, to wit: + +[173.15b]: "When competing for a section of road or a parking space, remember that the vehicle in need of the most body work has the right-of-way." + +[141.2a]: "Although it is altogether possible to fit a 6' car into a 6' parking space, it is hardly ever possible to fit a 6' car into a 5' parking space." + +[105.31]: "Teenage drivers believe that they are immortal, and drive accordingly. Nevertheless, you should avoid the temptation to prove them wrong." +% +I value kindness to human beings first of all, and kindness to animals. I don't respect the law; I have a total irreverence for anything connected with society except that which makes the roads safer, the beer stronger, the food cheaper, and old men and women warmer in the winter, and happier in the summer. + -- Brendan Behan +% +Idaho state law makes it illegal for a man to give his sweetheart a box of candy weighing less than fifty pounds. +% +If a jury in a criminal trial stays out for more than twenty-four hours, it is certain to vote acquittal, save in those instances where it votes guilty. + -- Joseph C. Goulden +% +If a man stay away from his wife for seven years, the law presumes the separation to have killed him; yet according to our daily experience, it might well prolong his life. + -- Charles Darling, "Scintillae Juris, 1877 +% +"If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he next comes to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination." + -- Thomas De Quincey (1785 - 1859) +% +If reporters don't know that truth is plural, they ought to be lawyers. + -- Tom Wicker +% +If there were a school for, say, sheet metal workers, that after three years left its graduates as unprepared for their careers as does law school, it would be closed down in a minute, and no doubt by lawyers. + -- Michael Levin, "The Socratic Method +% + In "King Henry VI, Part II," Shakespeare has Dick Butcher suggest to his fellow anti-establishment rabble-rousers, "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers." That action may be extreme but a similar sentiment was expressed by Thomas K. Connellan, president of The Management Group, Inc. Speaking to business executives in Chicago and quoted in Automotive News, Connellan attributed a measure of America's falling productivity to an excess of attorneys and accountants, and a dearth of production experts. Lawyers and accountants "do not make the economic pie any bigger; they only figure out how the pie gets divided. Neither profession provides any added value to product." + According to Connellan, the highly productive Japanese society has 10 lawyers and 30 accountants per 100,000 population. The U.S. has 200 lawyers and 700 accountants. This suggests that "the U.S. proportion of pie-bakers and pie-dividers is way out of whack." Could Dick Butcher have been an efficiency expert? + -- Motor Trend, May 1983 +% +In Blythe, California, a city ordinance declares that a person must own at least two cows before he can wear cowboy boots in public. +% +In Boston, it is illegal to hold frog-jumping contests in nightclubs. +% +In Columbia, Pennsylvania, it is against the law for a pilot to tickle a female flying student under her chin with a feather duster in order to get her attention. +% +In Corning, Iowa, it's a misdemeanor for a man to ask his wife to ride in any motor vehicle. +% +In Denver it is unlawful to lend your vacuum cleaner to your next-door neighbor. +% +In Devon, Connecticut, it is unlawful to walk backwards after sunset. +% +In Greene, New York, it is illegal to eat peanuts and walk backwards on the sidewalks when a concert is on. +% +In Lexington, Kentucky, it's illegal to carry an ice cream cone in your pocket. +% +In Lowes Crossroads, Delaware, it is a violation of local law for any pilot or passenger to carry an ice cream cone in their pocket while either flying or waiting to board a plane. +% + In Memphis, Tennessee, it is illegal for a woman to drive a car unless there is a man either running or walking in front of it waving a red flag to warn approaching motorists and pedestrians. +% +In Ohio, if you ignore an orator on Decoration day to such an extent as to publicly play croquet or pitch horseshoes within one mile of the speaker's stand, you can be fined $25.00. +% +In Pocataligo, Georgia, it is a violation for a woman over 200 pounds and attired in shorts to pilot or ride in an airplane. +% +In Pocatello, Idaho, a law passed in 1912 provided that "The carrying of concealed weapons is forbidden, unless same are exhibited to public view." +% +In Seattle, Washington, it is illegal to carry a concealed weapon that is over six feet in length. +% +In Tennessee, it is illegal to shoot any game other than whales from a moving automobile. +% +In the olden days in England, you could be hung for stealing a sheep or a loaf of bread. However, if a sheep stole a loaf of bread and gave it to you, you would only be tried for receiving, a crime punishable by forty lashes with the cat or the dog, whichever was handy. If you stole a dog and were caught, you were punished with twelve rabbit punches, although it was hard to find rabbits big enough or strong enough to punch you. + -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" +% +In Tulsa, Oklahoma, it is against the law to open a soda bottle without the supervision of a licensed engineer. +% +In West Union, Ohio, No married man can go flying without his spouse along at any time, unless he has been married for more than 12 months. +% +It has long been noticed that juries are pitiless for robbery and full of indulgence for infanticide. A question of interest, my dear Sir! The jury is afraid of being robbed and has passed the age when it could be a victim of infanticide. + -- Edmond About +% +It is against the law for a monster to enter the corporate limits of Urbana, Illinois. +% +It is illegal to drive more than two thousand sheep down Hollywood Boulevard at one time. +% +It is illegal to say "Oh, Boy" in Jonesboro, Georgia. +% +It is Mr. Mellon's credo that $200,000,000 can do no wrong. Our offense consists in doubting it. + -- Justice Robert H. Jackson +% +It is Texas law that when two trains meet each other at a railroad crossing, each shall come to a full stop, and neither shall proceed until the other has gone. +% +It seems these two guys, George and Harry, set out in a Hot Air balloon to cross the United States. After forty hours in the air, George turned to Harry, and said, "Harry, I think we've drifted off course! We need to find out where we are." Harry cools the air in the balloon, and they descend to below the cloud cover. Slowly drifting over the countryside, George spots a man standing below them and yells out, "Excuse me! Can you please tell me where we are?" The man on the ground yells back, "You're in a balloon, approximately fifty feet in the air!" George turns to Harry and says, "Well, that man *must* be a lawyer". Replies Harry, "How can you tell?". "Because the information he gave us is 100% accurate, and totally useless!" That's the end of The Joke, but for you people who are still worried about George and Harry: they end up in the drink, and make the front page of the New York Times: "Balloonists Soaked by Lawyer". +% +It shall be unlawful for any suspicious person to be within the municipality. + -- Local ordinance, Euclid Ohio +% +It's illegal in Wilbur, Washington, to ride an ugly horse. +% +It's recently come to Fortune's attention that scientists have stopped using laboratory rats in favor of attorneys. Seems that there are not only more of them, but you don't get so emotionally attached. The only difficulty is that it's sometimes difficult to apply the experimental results to humans. + [Also, there are some things even a rat won't do. Ed.] +% +Judges, as a class, display, in the matter of arranging alimony, that reckless generosity which is found only in men who are giving away someone else's cash. + -- P.G. Wodehouse, "Louder and Funnier" +% +Just remember: when you go to court, you are trusting your fate to twelve people that weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty! +% +Kansas state law requires pedestrians crossing the highways at night to wear tail lights. +% +Kirkland, Illinois, law forbids bees to fly over the village or through any of its streets. +% +Know how to save 5 drowning lawyers? -- No? GOOD! +% +Laws are like sausages. It's better not to see them being made. + -- Otto von Bismarck +% +Legislation proposed in the Illinois State Legislature, May, 1907: + "Speed upon county roads will be limited to ten miles an hour unless the motorist sees a bailiff who does not appear to have had a drink in 30 days, when the driver will be permitted to make what he can." +% +Let us remember that ours is a nation of lawyers and order. +% +Let's say your wedding ring falls into your toaster, and when you stick your hand in to retrieve it, you suffer Pain and Suffering as well as Mental Anguish. You would sue: * The toaster manufacturer, for failure to include, in the instructions section that says you should never never never ever stick you hand into the toaster, the statement "Not even if your wedding ring falls in there". * The store where you bought the toaster, for selling it to an obvious cretin like yourself. * Union Carbide Corporation, which is not directly responsible in this case, but which is feeling so guilty that it would probably send you a large cash settlement anyway. + -- Dave Barry +% +... Logically incoherent, semantically incomprehensible, and legally ... impeccable! +% +Loud burping while walking around the airport is prohibited in Halstead, Kansas. +% +Marijuana will be legal some day, because the many law students who now smoke pot will someday become congressmen and legalize it in order to protect themselves. + -- Lenny Bruce +% +Men often believe -- or pretend -- that the "Law" is something sacred, or at least a science -- an unfounded assumption very convenient to governments. +% +Minors in Kansas City, Missouri, are not allowed to purchase cap pistols; they may buy shotguns freely, however. +% +Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today. There might be a law against it by that time. +% +NEVER swerve to hit a lawyer riding a bicycle -- it might be your bicycle. +% +New Hampshire law forbids you to tap your feet, nod your head, or in any way keep time to the music in a tavern, restaurant, or cafe. +% +Of *course* it's the murder weapon. Who would frame someone with a fake? +% + Old Barlow was a crossing-tender at a junction where an express train demolished an automobile and its occupants. Being the chief witness, his testimony was vitally important. Barlow explained that the night was dark, and he waved his lantern frantically, but the driver of the car paid no attention to the signal. + The railroad company won the case, and the president of the company complimented the old-timer for his story. "You did wonderfully," he said, "I was afraid you would waver under testimony." + "No sir," exclaimed the senior, "but I sure was afraid that durned lawyer was gonna ask me if my lantern was lit." +% +Once he had one leg in the White House and the nation trembled under his roars. Now he is a tinpot pope in the Coca-Cola belt and a brother to the forlorn pastors who belabor halfwits in galvanized iron tabernacles behind the railroad yards." + -- H.L. Mencken, writing of William Jennings Bryan, counsel for the supporters of Tennessee's anti-evolution law at the Scopes "Monkey Trial" in 1925. +% +... Our second completely true news item was sent to me by Mr. H. Boyce Connell Jr. of Atlanta, Ga., where he is involved in a law firm. One thing I like about the South is, folks there care about tradition. If somebody gets handed a name like "H. Boyce," he hangs on to it, puts it on his legal stationery, even passes it to his son, rather than do what a lesser person would do, such as get it changed or kill himself. + -- Dave Barry, "This Column is Nothing but the Truth!" +% +Pittsburgh driver's test + +(10) Potholes are + (a) extremely dangerous. + (b) patriotic. + (c) the fault of the previous administration. + (d) all going to be fixed next summer. + +The correct answer is (b). Potholes destroy unpatriotic, unamerican, imported cars, since the holes are larger than the cars. If you drive a big, patriotic, American car you have nothing to worry about. +% +Pittsburgh driver's test + +(2) A traffic light at an intersection changes from yellow to red, you should + (a) stop immediately. + (b) proceed slowly through the intersection. + (c) blow the horn. + (d) floor it. + +The correct answer is (d). If you said (c), you were almost right, so give yourself a half point. +% +Pittsburgh driver's test + +(3) When stopped at an intersection you should + (a) watch the traffic light for your lane. + (b) watch for pedestrians crossing the street. + (c) blow the horn. + (d) watch the traffic light for the intersecting street. + +The correct answer is (d). You need to start as soon as the traffic light for the intersecting street turns yellow. Answer (c) is worth a half point. +% +Pittsburgh driver's test + +(4) Exhaust gas is + (a) beneficial. + (b) not harmful. + (c) toxic. + (d) a punk band. + +The correct answer is (b). The meddling Washington eco-freak communist bureaucrats who say otherwise are liars. (Message to those who answered (d). Go back to California where you came from. Your kind are not welcome here.) +% +Pittsburgh driver's test + +(5) Your car's horn is a vital piece of safety equipment. How often should you test it? + (a) once a year. + (b) once a month. + (c) once a day. + (d) once an hour. + +The correct answer is (d). You should test your car's horn at least once every hour, and more often at night or in residential neighborhoods. +% +Pittsburgh Driver's Test + +(7) The car directly in front of you has a flashing right tail light but a steady left tail light. This means + (a) one of the tail lights is broken; you should blow your horn + to call the problem to the driver's attention. + (b) the driver is signaling a right turn. + (c) the driver is signaling a left turn. + (d) the driver is from out of town. + +The correct answer is (d). Tail lights are used in some foreign countries to signal turns. +% +Pittsburgh Driver's Test + +(8) Pedestrians are + (a) irrelevant. + (b) communists. + (c) a nuisance. + (d) difficult to clean off the front grille. + +The correct answer is (a). Pedestrians are not in cars, so they are totally irrelevant to driving; you should ignore them completely. +% +Pittsburgh driver's test + +(9) Roads are salted in order to + (a) kill grass. + (b) melt snow. + (c) help the economy. + (d) prevent potholes. + +The correct answer is (c). Road salting employs thousands of persons directly, and millions more indirectly, for example, salt miners and rustproofers. Most important, salting reduces the life spans of cars, thus stimulating the car and steel industries. +% +She cried, and the judge wiped her tears with my checkbook. + -- Tommy Manville +% +Sho' they got to have it against the law. Shoot, ever'body git high, they wouldn't be nobody git up and feed the chickens. Hee-hee. + -- Terry Southern +% +Sometimes a man who deserves to be looked down upon because he is a fool is despised only because he is a lawyer. + -- Montesquieu +% +Texas law forbids anyone to have a pair of pliers in his possession. +% +The animals are not as stupid as one thinks -- they have neither doctors nor lawyers. + -- L. Docquier +% + The Arkansas legislature passed a law that states that the Arkansas River can rise no higher than to the Main Street bridge in Little Rock. +% +The City of Palo Alto, in its official description of parking lot standards, specifies the grade of wheelchair access ramps in terms of centimeters of rise per foot of run. A compromise, I imagine... +% +The difference between a lawyer and a rooster is that the rooster gets up in the morning and clucks defiance. +% +The District of Columbia has a law forbidding you to exert pressure on a balloon and thereby cause a whistling sound on the streets. +% + The judge fined the jaywalker fifty dollars and told him if he was caught again, he would be thrown in jail. Fine today, cooler tomorrow. +% +The justifications for drug testing are part of the presently fashionable debate concerning restoring America's "competitiveness." Drugs, it has been revealed, are responsible for rampant absenteeism, reduced output, and poor quality work. But is drug testing in fact rationally related to the resurrection of competitiveness? Will charging the atmosphere of the workplace with the fear of excretory betrayal honestly spur productivity? Much noise has been made about rehabilitating the worker using drugs, but to date the vast majority of programs end with the simple firing or the not hiring of the abuser. This practice may exacerbate, not alleviate, the nation's productivity problem. If economic rehabilitation is the ultimate goal of drug testing, then criteria abandoning the rehabilitation of the drug-using worker is the purest of hypocrisy and the worst of rationalization. + -- The concluding paragraph of "Constitutional Law: The ourth Amendment and Drug Testing in the Workplace," Tim Moore, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, vol. 10, No. 3 (Summer 1987), pp. 762-768. +% +The Law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich, as well as the poor, to sleep under the bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread. + -- Anatole France +% +The lawgiver, of all beings, most owes the law allegiance. He of all men should behave as though the law compelled him. But it is the universal weakness of mankind that what we are given to administer we presently imagine we own. + -- H.G. Wells +% +The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence. + -- H. L. Mencken +% +The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. + -- U.S. Constitution, Amendment 10. (Bill of Rights) +% +The primary requisite for any new tax law is for it to exempt enough voters to win the next election. +% +The state law of Pennsylvania prohibits singing in the bathtub. +% +The Worst Jury + A murder trial at Manitoba in February 1978 was well advanced, when one juror revealed that he was completely deaf and did not have the remotest clue what was happening. + The judge, Mr. Justice Solomon, asked him if he had heard any evidence at all and, when there was no reply, dismissed him. + The excitement which this caused was only equalled when a second juror revealed that he spoke not a word of English. A fluent French speaker, he exhibited great surprised when told, after two days, that he was hearing a murder trial. + The trial was abandoned when a third juror said that he suffered from both conditions, being simultaneously unversed in the English language and nearly as deaf as the first juror. + The judge ordered a retrial. + -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" +% +There is a Massachusetts law requiring all dogs to have their hind legs tied during the month of April. +% +There is no better way of exercising the imagination than the study of law. No poet ever interpreted nature as freely as a lawyer interprets truth. + -- Jean Giraudoux, "Tiger at the Gates" +% +There is no doubt that my lawyer is honest. For example, when he filed his income tax return last year, he declared half of his salary as 'unearned income.' + -- Michael Lara +% +"There was an interesting development in the CBS-Westmoreland trial: both sides agreed that after the trial, Andy Rooney would be allowed to talk to the jury for three minutes about little things that annoyed him during the trial." + -- David Letterman +% +There's no justice in this world. + -- Frank Costello, on the prosecution of "Lucky" Luciano by + New York district attorney Thomas Dewey after Luciano had + saved Dewey from assassination by Dutch Schultz (by ordering + the assassination of Schultz instead) +% +This product is meant for educational purposes only. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental. Void where prohibited. Some assembly may be required. Batteries not included. Contents may settle during shipment. Use only as directed. May be too intense for some viewers. If condition persists, consult your physician. No user-serviceable parts inside. Breaking seal constitutes acceptance of agreement. Not responsible for direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages resulting from any defect, error or failure to perform. Slippery when wet. For office use only. Substantial penalty for early withdrawal. Do not write below this line. Your cancelled check is your receipt. Avoid contact with skin. Employees and their families are not eligible. Beware of dog. Driver does not carry cash. Limited time offer, call now to insure prompt delivery. Use only in well-ventilated area. Keep away from fire or flame. Some equipment shown is optional. Price does not include taxes, dealer prep, or delivery. Penalty for private use. Call toll free before digging. Some of the trademarks mentioned in this product appear for identification purposes only. All models over 18 years of age. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Postage will be paid by addressee. Apply only to affected area. One size fits all. Many suitcases look alike. Edited for television. No solicitors. Reproduction strictly prohibited. Restaurant package, not for resale. Objects in mirror are closer than they appear. Decision of judges is final. This supersedes all previous notices. No other warranty expressed or implied. +% +Virginia law forbids bathtubs in the house; tubs must be kept in the yard. +% +We may not like doctors, but at least they doctor. Bankers are not ever popular but at least they bank. Policeman police and undertakers take under. But lawyers do not give us law. We receive not the gladsome light of jurisprudence, but rather precedents, objections, appeals, stays, filings and forms, motions and counter-motions, all at $250 an hour. + -- Nolo News, summer 1989 +% +We should realize that a city is better off with bad laws, so long as they remain fixed, then with good laws that are constantly being altered, that the lack of learning combined with sound common sense is more helpful than the kind of cleverness that gets out of hand, and that as a general rule, states are better governed by the man in the street than by intellectuals. These are the sort of people who want to appear wiser than the laws, who want to get their own way in every general discussion, because they feel that they cannot show off their intelligence in matters of greater importance, and who, as a result, very often bring ruin on their country. + -- Cleon, Thucydides, III, 37 translation by Rex Warner +% +Welcome to Utah. If you think our liquor laws are funny, you should see our underwear! +% +What do you have when you have six lawyers buried up to their necks in sand? Not enough sand. +% +When alerted to an intrusion by tinkling glass or otherwise, 1) Calm yourself 2) Identify the intruder 3) If hostile, kill him. Step number 3 is of particular importance. If you leave the guy alive out of misguided softheartedness, he will repay your generosity of spirit by suing you for causing his subsequent paraplegia and seek to force you to support him for the rest of his rotten life. In court he will plead that he was depressed because society had failed him, and that he was looking for Mother Teresa for comfort and to offer his services to the poor. In that lawsuit, you will lose. If, on the other hand, you kill him, the most that you can expect is that a relative will bring a wrongful death action. You will have two advantages: first, there be only your story; forget Mother Teresa. Second, even if you lose, how much could the bum's life be worth anyway? A Lot less than 50 years worth of paralysis. Don't play George Bush and Saddam Hussein. Finish the job. + -- G. Gordon Liddy's "Forbes" column on personal security +% +Where it is a duty to worship the sun it is pretty sure to be a crime to examine the laws of heat. + -- Christopher Morley +% +Why does a hearse horse snicker, hauling a lawyer away? + -- Carl Sandburg +% +Why does New Jersey have more toxic waste dumps and California have more lawyers? New Jersey had first choice. +% +With Congress, every time they make a joke it's a law; and every time they make a law it's a joke. + -- Will Rogers diff --git a/data/etc/fortunes/Linux cookies b/data/etc/fortunes/Linux cookies new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..bcc99f136d --- /dev/null +++ b/data/etc/fortunes/Linux cookies @@ -0,0 +1,367 @@ +A Linux machine! because a 486 is a terrible thing to waste! +(By jjs@wintermute.ucr.edu, Joe Sloan) +% +"Absolutely nothing should be concluded from these figures except that no conclusion can be drawn from them." +(By Joseph L. Brothers, Linux/PowerPC Project) +% +Actually, typing random strings in the Finder does the equivalent of filename completion. +(Discussion in comp.os.linux.misc on the intuitiveness of commands: file completion vs. the Mac Finder.) +% +After watching my newly-retired dad spend two weeks learning how to make a new folder, it became obvious that "intuitive" mostly means "what the writer or speaker of intuitive likes". +(Bruce Ediger, bediger@teal.csn.org, in comp.os.linux.misc, on X the intuitiveness of a Mac interface.) +% +"All language designers are arrogant. Goes with the territory..." +(By Larry Wall) +% +And 1.1.81 is officially BugFree(tm), so if you receive any bug-reports on it, you know they are just evil lies." +(By Linus Torvalds, Linus.Torvalds@cs.helsinki.fi) +% +"...and scantily clad females, of course. Who cares if it's below zero outside" +(By Linus Torvalds) +% +"And the next time you consider complaining that running Lucid Emacs 19.05 via NFS from a remote Linux machine in Paraguay doesn't seem to get the background colors right, you'll know who to thank." +(By Matt Welsh) +% +> : Any porters out there should feel happier knowing that DEC is shipping +> : me an AlphaPC that I intend to try getting linux running on: this will +> : definitely help flush out some of the most flagrant unportable stuff. +> : The Alpha is much more different from the i386 than the 68k stuff is, so +> : it's likely to get most of the stuff fixed. +> +> It's posts like this that almost convince us non-believers that there +> really is a god. +(A follow-up by alovell@kerberos.demon.co.uk, Anthony Lovell, to Linus's remarks about porting) +% +Anyone who thinks UNIX is intuitive should be forced to write 5000 lines of code using nothing but vi or emacs. AAAAACK! +(Discussion in comp.os.linux.misc on the intuitiveness of commands, especially Emacs.) +% +"Are [Linux users] lemmings collectively jumping off of the cliff of reliable, well-engineered commercial software?" +(By Matt Welsh) +% +As usual, this being a 1.3.x release, I haven't even compiled this kernel yet. So if it works, you should be doubly impressed. +(Linus Torvalds, announcing kernel 1.3.3 on the linux-kernel mailing list.) +% +Avoid the Gates of Hell. Use Linux +(Unknown source) +% +Be warned that typing \fBkillall \fIname\fP may not have the desired effect on non-Linux systems, especially when done by a privileged user. +(From the killall manual page) +% +"Besides, I think [Slackware] sounds better than 'Microsoft,' don't you?" +(By Patrick Volkerding) +% +But what can you do with it? -- ubiquitous cry from Linux-user partner. +(Submitted by Andy Pearce, ajp@hpopd.pwd.hp.com) +% +"By golly, I'm beginning to think Linux really *is* the best thing since sliced bread." +(By Vance Petree, Virginia Power) +% +/* + * Oops. The kernel tried to access some bad page. We'll have to + * terminate things with extreme prejudice. +*/ +die_if_kernel("Oops", regs, error_code); +(From linux/arch/i386/mm/fault.c) +% +"...Deep Hack Mode--that mysterious and frightening state of consciousness where Mortal Users fear to tread." +(By Matt Welsh) +% +Dijkstra probably hates me +(Linus Torvalds, in kernel/sched.c) +% +DOS: n., A small annoying boot virus that causes random spontaneous system crashes, usually just before saving a massive project. Easily cured by UNIX. See also MS-DOS, IBM-DOS, DR-DOS. +(from David Vicker's .plan) +% +/* + * [...] Note that 120 sec is defined in the protocol as the maximum + * possible RTT. I guess we'll have to use something other than TCP + * to talk to the University of Mars. + * PAWS allows us longer timeouts and large windows, so once implemented + * ftp to mars will work nicely. + */ +(from /usr/src/linux/net/inet/tcp.c, concerning RTT [retransmission timeout]) +% +"Even more amazing was the realization that God has Internet access. I wonder if He has a full newsfeed?" +(By Matt Welsh) +% +>Ever heard of .cshrc? +That's a city in Bosnia. Right? +(Discussion in comp.os.linux.misc on the intuitiveness of commands.) +% +Fatal Error: Found [MS-Windows] System -> Repartitioning Disk for Linux... +(By cbbrown@io.org, Christopher Browne) +% +How do I type "for i in *.dvi do xdvi i done" in a GUI? +(Discussion in comp.os.linux.misc on the intuitiveness of interfaces.) +% +"How should I know if it works? That's what beta testers are for. I only coded it." +(Attributed to Linus Torvalds, somewhere in a posting) +% +I develop for Linux for a living, I used to develop for DOS. Going from DOS to Linux is like trading a glider for an F-117. +(By entropy@world.std.com, Lawrence Foard) +% +I did this 'cause Linux gives me a woody. It doesn't generate revenue. +(Dave '-ddt->` Taylor, announcing DOOM for Linux) +% +Feel free to contact me (flames about my english and the useless of this driver will be redirected to /dev/null, oh no, it's full...). +(Michael Beck, describing the PC-speaker sound device) +% +"I don't know why, but first C programs tend to look a lot worse than first programs in any other language (maybe except for fortran, but then I suspect all fortran programs look like `firsts')" +(By Olaf Kirch) +% +"I once witnessed a long-winded, month-long flamewar over the use of mice vs. trackballs...It was very silly." +(By Matt Welsh) +% +I still maintain the point that designing a monolithic kernel in 1991 is a fundamental error. Be thankful you are not my student. You would not get a high grade for such a design :-) +(Andrew Tanenbaum to Linus Torvalds) +% +"I would rather spend 10 hours reading someone else's source code than 10 minutes listening to Musak waiting for technical support which isn't." +(By Dr. Greg Wettstein, Roger Maris Cancer Center) +% +"I'd crawl over an acre of 'Visual This++' and 'Integrated Development That' to get to gcc, Emacs, and gdb. Thank you." +(By Vance Petree, Virginia Power) +% +"I'm an idiot.. At least this one [bug] took about 5 minutes to find.." +(Linus Torvalds in response to a bug report.) + +> I'm an idiot.. At least this [bug] took about 5 minutes to find.. +Disquieting ... +(Gonzalo Tornaria in response to Linus Torvalds's mailing about a kernel bug.) + +> I'm an idiot.. At least this [bug] took about 5 minutes to find.. +We need to find some new terms to describe the rest of us mere mortals then. +(Craig Schlenter in response to Linus Torvalds's mailing about a kernel bug.) + +> I'm an idiot.. At least this [bug] took about 5 minutes to find.. +Surely, Linus is talking about the kind of idiocy that others aspire to :-). +(Bruce Perens in response to Linus Torvalds's mailing about a kernel bug.) +% +I've run DOOM more in the last few days than I have the last few months. I just love debugging ;-) +(Linus Torvalds) +% +Microsoft Corp., concerned by the growing popularity of the free 32-bit operating system for Intel systems, Linux, has employed a number of top programmers from the underground world of virus development. Bill Gates stated yesterday: "World domination, fast -- it's either us or Linus". Mr. Torvalds was unavailable for comment ... +(rjm@swift.eng.ox.ac.uk (Robert Manners), in comp.os.linux.setup) +% + if (argc > 1 && strcmp(argv[1], "-advice") == 0) { + printf("Don't Panic!\n"); + exit(42); + } +(Arnold Robbins in the LJ of February '95, describing RCS) +% ++#if defined(__alpha__) && defined(CONFIG_PCI) ++ /* ++ * The meaning of life, the universe, and everything. Plus ++ * this makes the year come out right. ++ */ ++ year -= 42; ++#endif +(From the patch for 1.3.2: (kernel/time.c), submitted by Marcus Meissner) +% +"If the future navigation system [for interactive networked services on the NII] looks like something from Microsoft, it will never work." +(Chairman of Walt Disney Television & Telecommunications) +% +"If you want to travel around the world and be invited to speak at a lot of different places, just write a Unix operating system." +(By Linus Torvalds) +% +"[In 'Doctor' mode], I spent a good ten minutes telling Emacs what I thought of it. (The response was, 'Perhaps you could try to be less abusive.')" +(By Matt Welsh) +% +In most countries selling harmful things like drugs is punishable. Then how come people can sell Microsoft software and go unpunished? +(By hasku@rost.abo.fi, Hasse Skrifvars) +% +"It's God. No, not Richard Stallman, or Linus Torvalds, but God." +(By Matt Welsh) +% +LILO, you've got me on my knees! +(from David Black, dblack@pilot.njin.net, with apologies to Derek and the Dominos, and Werner Almsberger) +% +Linux is obsolete +(Andrew Tanenbaum) +% +"Linux poses a real challenge for those with a taste for late-night hacking (and/or conversations with God)." +(By Matt Welsh) +% +Linux! Guerrilla UNIX Development Venimus, Vidimus, Dolavimus. +(By mah@ka4ybr.com, Mark A. Horton KA4YBR) +% +"...[Linux's] capacity to talk via any medium except smoke signals." +(By Dr. Greg Wettstein, Roger Maris Cancer Center) +% +linux: because a PC is a terrible thing to waste +(ksh@cis.ufl.edu put this on Tshirts in '93) +% +Linux: Because a PC is a terrible thing to waste. +(By komarimf@craft.camp.clarkson.edu, Mark Komarinski) +% +linux: the choice of a GNU generation +(ksh@cis.ufl.edu put this on Tshirts in '93) +% +"Linux: the operating system with a CLUE... Command Line User Environment". +(seen in a posting in comp.software.testing) +% +lp1 on fire +(One of the more obfuscated kernel messages) +% +Microsoft is not the answer. +Microsoft is the question. +NO (or Linux) is the answer. +(Taken from a .signature from someone from the UK, source unknown) +% +"MSDOS didn't get as bad as it is overnight -- it took over ten years of careful development." +(By dmeggins@aix1.uottawa.ca) +% +"Never make any mistaeks." +(Anonymous, in a mail discussion about to a kernel bug report.) +% +Not me, guy. I read the Bash man page each day like a Jehovah's Witness reads the Bible. No wait, the Bash man page IS the bible. Excuse me... +(More on confusing aliases, taken from comp.os.linux.misc) +% +"Note that if I can get you to \"su and say\" something just by asking, you have a very serious security problem on your system and you should look into it." +(By Paul Vixie, vixie-cron 3.0.1 installation notes) +% +Now I know someone out there is going to claim, "Well then, UNIX is intuitive, because you only need to learn 5000 commands, and then everything else follows from that! Har har har!" +(Andy Bates in comp.os.linux.misc, on "intuitive interfaces", slightly defending Macs.) +% +Now, it we had this sort of thing: + yield -a for yield to all traffic + yield -t for yield to trucks + yield -f for yield to people walking (yield foot) + yield -d t* for yield on days starting with t +...you'd have a lot of dead people at intersections, and traffic jams you wouldn't believe... +(Discussion in comp.os.linux.misc on the intuitiveness of commands.) +% +"Oh, I've seen copies [of Linux Journal] around the terminal room at The Labs." +(By Dennis Ritchie) +% +"On a normal ascii line, the only safe condition to detect is a 'BREAK' - everything else having been assigned functions by Gnu EMACS." +(By Tarl Neustaedter) +% +"On the Internet, no one knows you're using Windows NT" +(Submitted by Ramiro Estrugo, restrugo@fateware.com) +% +Once upon a time there was a DOS user who saw Unix, and saw that it was good. After typing cp on his DOS machine at home, he downloaded GNU's unix tools ported to DOS and installed them. He rm'd, cp'd, and mv'd happily for many days, and upon finding elvis, he vi'd and was happy. After a long day at work (on a Unix box) he came home, started editing a file, and couldn't figure out why he couldn't suspend vi (w/ ctrl-z) to do a compile. +(By ewt@tipper.oit.unc.edu (Erik Troan) +% +> > Other than the fact Linux has a cool name, could someone explain why I +> > should use Linux over BSD? +> +> No. That's it. The cool name, that is. We worked very hard on +> creating a name that would appeal to the majority of people, and it +> certainly paid off: thousands of people are using linux just to be able +> to say "OS/2? Hah. I've got Linux. What a cool name". 386BSD made the +> mistake of putting a lot of numbers and weird abbreviations into the +> name, and is scaring away a lot of people just because it sounds too +> technical. +(Linus Torvalds' follow-up to a question about Linux) +% +Personally, I think my choice in the mostest-superlative-computer wars has to be the HP-48 series of calculators. They'll run almost anything. And if they can't, while I'll just plug a Linux box into the serial port and load up the HP-48 VT-100 emulator. +(By jdege@winternet.com, Jeff Dege) +% +"Problem solving under linux has never been the circus that it is under AIX." +(By Pete Ehlke in comp.unix.aix) +% +quit When the quit statement is read, the bc processor + is terminated, regardless of where the quit state- + ment is found. For example, "if (0 == 1) quit" + will cause bc to terminate. +(Seen in the manpage for "bc". Note the "if" statement's logic) +% +Running Windows on a Pentium is like having a brand new Porsche but only be able to drive backwards with the handbrake on. +(Unknown source) +% +"sic transit discus mundi" +(From the System Administrator's Guide, by Lars Wirzenius) +% +Sigh. I like to think it's just the Linux people who want to be on the "leading edge" so bad they walk right off the precipice. +(Craig E. Groeschel) +% +The chat program is in public domain. This is not the GNU public license. If it breaks then you get to keep both pieces. +(Copyright notice for the chat program) +% +> The day people think linux would be better served by somebody else (FSF +> being the natural alternative), I'll "abdicate". I don't think that +> it's something people have to worry about right now - I don't see it +> happening in the near future. I enjoy doing linux, even though it does +> mean some work, and I haven't gotten any complaints (some almost timid +> reminders about a patch I have forgotten or ignored, but nothing +> negative so far). +> +> Don't take the above to mean that I'll stop the day somebody complains: +> I'm thick-skinned (Lasu, who is reading this over my shoulder commented +> that "thick-HEADED is closer to the truth") enough to take some abuse. +> If I weren't, I'd have stopped developing linux the day ast ridiculed me +> on c.o.minix. What I mean is just that while linux has been my baby so +> far, I don't want to stand in the way if people want to make something +> better of it (*). +> +> Linus +> +> (*) Hey, maybe I could apply for a saint-hood from the Pope. Does +> somebody know what his email-address is? I'm so nice it makes you puke. +(Taken from Linus's reply to someone worried about the future of Linux) +% +The nice thing about Windows is - It does not just crash, it displays a dialog box and lets you press 'OK' first. +(Arno Schaefer's .sig) +% +The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned. +(Bruce Ediger, bediger@teal.csn.org, in comp.os.linux.misc, on X interfaces.) +% +There are two types of Linux developers - those who can spell, and those who can't. There is a constant pitched battle between the two. +(From one of the post-1.1.54 kernel update messages posted to c.o.l.a) +% +"...Unix, MS-DOS, and Windows NT (also known as the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly)." +(By Matt Welsh) +% +"...very few phenomena can pull someone out of Deep Hack Mode, with two noted exceptions: being struck by lightning, or worse, your *computer* being struck by lightning." +(By Matt Welsh) +% +"Waving away a cloud of smoke, I look up, and am blinded by a bright, white light. It's God. No, not Richard Stallman, or Linus Torvalds, but God. In a booming voice, He says: "THIS IS A SIGN. USE LINUX, THE FREE UNIX SYSTEM FOR THE 386." +(Matt Welsh) +% +"We all know Linux is great...it does infinite loops in 5 seconds." +(Linus Torvalds about the superiority of Linux on the Amterdam Linux Symposium) +% +We are MicroSoft. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile. +(Attributed to B.G., Gill Bates) +% +We are Pentium of Borg. Division is futile. You will be approximated. +(seen in someone's .signature) +% +We are using Linux daily to UP our productivity - so UP yours! +(Adapted from Pat Paulsen by Joe Sloan) +% +We come to bury DOS, not to praise it. +(Paul Vojta, vojta@math.berkeley.edu, paraphrasing a quote of Shakespeare) +% +We use Linux for all our mission-critical applications. Having the source code means that we are not held hostage by anyone's support department. +(Russell Nelson, President of Crynwr Software) +% +"What you end up with, after running an operating system concept through these many marketing coffee filters, is something not unlike plain hot water." +(By Matt Welsh) +% +`When you say "I wrote a program that crashed Windows", people just stare at you blankly and say "Hey, I got those with the system, *for free*".' +(By Linus Torvalds) +% +"Whip me. Beat me. Make me maintain AIX." +(By Stephan Zielinski) +% +"Who is General Failure and why is he reading my hard disk ?" +Microsoft spel chekar vor sail, worgs grate !! +(By leitner@inf.fu-berlin.de, Felix von Leitner) +% +Who wants to remember that escape-x-alt-control-left shift-b puts you into super-edit-debug-compile mode? +(Discussion in comp.os.linux.misc on the intuitiveness of commands, especially +Emacs.) +% +Why use Windows, since there is a door? +(By fachat@galileo.rhein-neckar.de, Andre Fachat) +% +"World domination. Fast" +(By Linus Torvalds) +% +..you could spend *all day* customizing the title bar. Believe me. I speak from experience." +(By Matt Welsh) +% +"...you might as well skip the Xmas celebration completely, and instead sit in front of your linux computer playing with the all-new-and-improved linux kernel version." +(By Linus Torvalds) +% diff --git a/data/etc/fortunes/Love b/data/etc/fortunes/Love new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..9d1df4f39e --- /dev/null +++ b/data/etc/fortunes/Love @@ -0,0 +1,465 @@ +A career is great, but you can't run your fingers through its hair. +% +A kiss is a course of procedure, cunningly devised, for the mutual stoppage of speech at a moment when words are superfluous. +% +A woman was in love with fourteen soldiers. It was clearly platoonic. +% +Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones, as the wind blows out candles and fans fires. + -- La Rochefoucauld +% +Absence in love is like water upon fire; a little quickens, but much extinguishes it. + -- Hannah More +% +Absence is to love what wind is to fire. It extinguishes the small, it enkindles the great. +% +All the passions make us commit faults; love makes us commit the most ridiculous ones. + -- La Rochefoucauld +% +Always there remain portions of our heart into which no one is able to enter, invite them as we may. +% +Bondage maybe, discipline never! + -- T.K. +% +Distrust all those who love you extremely upon a very slight acquaintance and without any visible reason. + -- Lord Chesterfield +% +Don't despair; your ideal lover is waiting for you around the corner. +% +Falling in Love + When two people have been on enough dates, they generally fall in love. You can tell you're in love by the way you feel: your head becomes light, your heart leaps within you, you feel like you're walking on air,and the whole world seems like a wonderful and happy place. Unfortunately, these are also the four warning signs of colon disease, so it's always a good idea to check with your doctor. + -- Dave Barry +% +Falling in love is a lot like dying. You never get to do it enough to become good at it. +% +Finish the sentence below in 25 words or less: + + "Love is what you feel just before you give someone a good ..." + +Mail your answer along with the top half of your supervisor to: + + P.O. Box 35 + Baffled Greek, Michigan +% +Give me chastity and continence, but not just now. + -- St. Augustine +% +God is love, but get it in writing. + -- Gypsy Rose Lee +% +"He did decide, though, that with more time and a great deal of mental effort, he could probably turn the activity into an acceptable perversion." + -- Mick Farren, "When Gravity Fails" +% +He who is in love with himself has at least this advantage -- he won't encounter many rivals. + -- Georg Lichtenberg, "Aphorisms" +% +Hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable. + -- The Wizard of Oz +% +HEY KIDS! ANN LANDERS SAYS: + Be sure it's true when you say "I love you". It's a sin to tell a lie. Millions of hearts have been broken just because these words were spoken. +% +His heart was yours from the first moment that you met. +% +How much does she love you? Less than you'll ever know. +% +I am two fools, I know, for loving, and for saying so. + -- John Donne +% +I can mend the break of day, heal a broken heart, and provide temporary +relief to nymphomaniacs. + -- Larry Lee +% +I don't want people to love me. It makes for obligations. + -- Jean Anouilh +% +I love you more than anything in this world. I don't expect that will last. + -- Elvis Costello +% +I love you, not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you. + -- Roy Croft +% +I loved her with a love thirsty and desperate. I felt that we two might commit some act so atrocious that the world, seeing us, would find it irresistible. + -- Gene Wolfe, "The Shadow of the Torturer" +% +I never loved another person the way I loved myself. + -- Mae West +% +I think a relationship is like a shark. It has to constantly move forward or it dies. Well, what we have on our hands here is a dead shark. + -- Woody Allen +% +I used to be Snow White, but I drifted. + -- Mae West +% +I used to think romantic love was a neurosis shared by two, a supreme foolishness. I no longer thought that. There's nothing foolish in loving anyone. Thinking you'll be loved in return is what's foolish. + -- Rita Mae Brown +% +"I'd love to go out with you, but I did my own thing and now I've got to undo it." +% +"I'd love to go out with you, but I have to floss my cat." +% +"I'd love to go out with you, but I have to stay home and see if I snore." +% +"I'd love to go out with you, but I never go out on days that end in `Y.'" +% +"I'd love to go out with you, but I want to spend more time with my blender." +% +"I'd love to go out with you, but I'm attending the opening of my garage door." +% +"I'd love to go out with you, but I'm converting my calendar watch from Julian to Gregorian." +% +"I'd love to go out with you, but I'm doing door-to-door collecting for static cling." +% +"I'd love to go out with you, but I'm having all my plants neutered." +% +"I'd love to go out with you, but I'm staying home to work on my cottage cheese sculpture." +% +"I'd love to go out with you, but I'm taking punk totem pole carving." +% +"I'd love to go out with you, but I've been scheduled for a karma transplant." +% +"I'd love to go out with you, but it's my parakeet's bowling night." +% +"I'd love to go out with you, but my favorite commercial is on TV." +% +"I'd love to go out with you, but the last time I went out, I never came back." +% +"I'd love to go out with you, but the man on television told me to say tuned." +% +"I'd love to go out with you, but there are important world issues that need worrying about." +% +I'd love to kiss you, but I just washed my hair. + -- Bette Davis, "Cabin in the Cotton" +% + "I'll tell you what I know, then," he decided. "The pin I'm wearing means I'm a member of the IA. That's Inamorati Anonymous. An inamorato is somebody in love. That's the worst addiction of all." + "Somebody is about to fall in love," Oedipa said, "you go sit with them, or something?" + "Right. The whole idea is to get where you don't need it. I was lucky. I kicked it young. But there are sixty-year-old men, believe it or not, and women even older, who might wake up in the night screaming." + "You hold meetings, then, like the AA?" + "No, of course not. You get a phone number, an answering service you can call. Nobody knows anybody else's name; just the number in case it gets so bad you can't handle it alone. We're isolates, Arnold. Meetings would destroy the whole point of it." + -- Thomas Pynchon, "The Crying of Lot 49" +% +If love is the answer, could you rephrase the question? + -- Lily Tomlin +% +If Love Were Oil, I'd Be About A Quart Low + -- Book title by Lewis Grizzard +% + If only you knew she loved you, you could face the uncertainty of whether you love her. +% +If you can't be good, be careful. If you can't be careful, give me a call. +% +If you love someone, set them free. +If they don't come back, then call them up when you're drunk. +% +In a great romance, each person basically plays a part that the other really likes. + -- Elizabeth Ashley +% +In an age when the fashion is to be in love with yourself, confessing to be in love with somebody else is an admission of unfaithfulness to one's beloved. + -- Russell Baker +% +In love, she who gives her portrait promises the original. + -- Bruton +% +In real love you want the other person's good. In romantic love you want the other person. + -- Margaret Anderson +% +It is far better to be deceived than to be undeceived by those we love. +% +Just how difficult it is to write biography can be reckoned by anybody who sits down and considers just how many people know the real truth about his or her love affairs. + -- Rebecca West +% +Let us live!!! +Let us love!!! +Let us share the deepest secrets of our souls!!! + +You first. +% +Let's just be friends and make no special effort to ever see each other again. +% +Let's not complicate our relationship by trying to communicate with each other. +% +Lonely is a man without love. + -- Englebert Humperdinck +% +Love -- the last of the serious diseases of childhood. +% +Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea. +% +Love at first sight is one of the greatest labor-saving devices the world has ever seen. +% +Love cannot be much younger than the lust for murder. + -- Sigmund Freud +% +Love conquers all things; let us too surrender to love. + -- Publius Vergilius Maro (Virgil) +% +Love is a grave mental disease. + -- Plato +% +Love is always open arms. With arms open you allow love to come and go as it wills, freely, for it will do so anyway. If you close your arms about love you'll find you are left only holding yourself. +% +Love is being stupid together. + -- Paul Valery +% +Love is dope, not chicken soup. I mean, love is something to be passed around freely, not spooned down someone's throat for their own good by a Jewish mother who cooked it all by herself. +% +Love is in the offing. + -- The Homicidal Maniac +% +Love is like a friendship caught on fire. In the beginning a flame, very pretty, often hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. As love grows older, our hearts mature and our love becomes as coals, deep-burning and unquenchable. + -- Bruce Lee +% +Love is like the measles; we all have to go through it. + -- Jerome K. Jerome +% +Love is never asking why? +% +Love is not enough, but it sure helps. +% +Love is sentimental measles. +% +Love is staying up all night with a sick child, or a healthy adult. +% +Love is the only game that is not called on account of darkness. + -- M. Hirschfield +% +Love is the process of my leading you gently back to yourself. + -- Saint Exupery +% +Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. + -- H. L. Mencken +% +Love IS what it's cracked up to be. +% +Love is what you've been through with somebody. + -- James Thurber +% +Love isn't only blind, it's also deaf, dumb, and stupid. +% +Love means having to say you're sorry every five minutes. +% +Love means never having to say you're sorry. + -- Eric Segal, "Love Story" + +That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. + -- Ryan O'Neill, "What's Up Doc?" +% +Love tells us many things that are not so. + -- Krainian Proverb +% +May your SO always know when you need a hug. +% +"Maybe we should think of this as one perfect week... where we found each other, and loved each other... and then let each other go before anyone had to seek professional help." +% +Most people don't need a great deal of love nearly so much as they need a steady supply. +% +My cup hath runneth'd over with love. +% + "No, I understand now," Auberon said, calm in the woods -- it was so simple, really. "I didn't, for a long time, but I do now. You just can't hold people, you can't own them. I mean it's only natural, a natural process really. Meet. Love. Part. Life goes on. There was never any reason to expect her to stay always the same -- I mean `in love,' you know." There were those doubt-quotes of Smoky's, heavily indicated. "I don't hold a grudge. I can't." + "You do," Grandfather Trout said. "And you don't understand." + -- Little, Big, "John Crowley" +% +Of all forms of caution, caution in love is the most fatal. +% +Of course it's possible to love a human being if you don't know them too well. + -- Charles Bukowski +% +Oh, love is real enough, you will find it some day, but it has one arch-enemy -- and that is life. + -- Jean Anouilh, "Ardele" +% +On a tous un peu peur de l'amour, mais on a surtout peur de souffrir ou de faire souffrir. + [One is always a little afraid of love, but above all, one is afraid of pain or causing pain.] +% +Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue to exist, a wonderful living side by side can grow up, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see each other whole against the sky. + -- Rainer Rilke +% +One expresses well the love he does not feel. + -- J.A. Karr +% +People think love is an emotion. Love is good sense. + -- Ken Kesey +% +Really?? What a coincidence, I'm shallow too!! +% +Sometime when you least expect it, Love will tap you on the shoulder... and ask you to move out of the way because it still isn't your turn. + -- N.V. Plyter +% +Sometimes love ain't nothing but a misunderstanding between two fools. +% +Sorry never means having your say to love. +% +Speaking of love, one problem that recurs more and more frequently these days, in books and plays and movies, is the inability of people to communicate with the people they love; Husbands and wives who can't communicate, children who can't communicate with their parents, and so on. And the characters in these books and plays and so on (and in real life, I might add) spend hours bemoaning the fact that they can't communicate. I feel that if a person can't communicate, the very *least* he can do is to shut up! + -- Tom Lehrer, "That Was the Year that Was" +% +Support wildlife -- vote for an orgy. +% +That is the true season of love, when we believe that we alone can love, that no one could have loved so before us, and that no one will love in the same way as us. + -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe +% +That's life for you, said McDunn. Someone always waiting for someone who never comes home. Always someone loving something more than that thing loves them. And after awhile you want to destroy whatever that thing is, so it can't hurt you no more. + -- R. Bradbury, "The Fog Horn" +% + The birds are singing, the flowers are budding, and it is time for Miss Manners to tell young lovers to stop necking in public. + It's not that Miss Manners is immune to romance. Miss Manners has been known to squeeze a gentleman's arm while being helped over a curb, and, in her wild youth, even to press a dainty slipper against a foot or two under the dinner table. Miss Manners also believes that the sight of people strolling hand in hand or arm in arm or arm in hand dresses up a city considerably more than the more familiar sight of people shaking umbrellas at one another. What Miss Manners objects to is the kind of activity that frightens the horses on the street... +% +The giraffe you thought you offended last week is willing to be nuzzled today. +% +The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of. + -- Blaise Pascal +% +The heart is wiser than the intellect. +% +The little pieces of my life I give to you, with love, to make a quilt to keep away the cold. +% +The magic of our first love is our ignorance that it can ever end. + -- Benjamin Disraeli +% +The myth of romantic love holds that once you've fallen in love with the perfect partner, you're home free. Unfortunately, falling out of love seems to be just as involuntary as falling into it. +% +The only difference in the game of love over the last few thousand years is that they've changed trumps from clubs to diamonds. + -- The Indianapolis Star +% +The onset and the waning of love make themselves felt in the uneasiness experienced at being alone together. + -- Jean de la Bruyere +% +The perfect lover is one who turns into a pizza at 4:00 A.M. + -- Charles Pierce +% +The person you rejected yesterday could make you happy, if you say yes. +% +The seven year itch comes from fooling around during the fourth, fifth, and sixth years. +% +The story of the butterfly: + "I was in Bogota and waiting for a lady friend. I was in love, a long time ago. I waited three days. I was hungry but could not go out for food, lest she come and I not be there to greet her. Then, on the third day, I heard a knock." + "I hurried along the old passage and there, in the sunlight, there was nothing." + "Just," Vance Joy said, "a butterfly, flying away." + -- Peter Carey, BLISS +% +The sweeter the apple, the blacker the core -- +Scratch a lover and find a foe! + -- Dorothy Parker, "Ballad of a Great Weariness" +% +The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost. +% +There are some micro-organisms that exhibit characteristics of both plants and animals. When exposed to light they undergo photosynthesis; and when the lights go out, they turn into animals. But then again, don't we all? +% +There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear. +% +There is only one way to be happy by means of the heart -- to have none. + -- Paul Bourget +% +There's so much to say but your eyes keep interrupting me. +% +Timing must be perfect now. Two-timing must be better than perfect. +% +To be loved is very demoralizing. + -- Katharine Hepburn +% +To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three +parts dead. + -- Bertrand Russell +% +Total strangers need love, too; and I'm stranger than most. +% +True happiness will be found only in true love. +% +Under deadline pressure for the next week. If you want something, it can wait. Unless it's blind screaming paroxysmally hedonistic... +% +We don't believe in rheumatism and true love until after the first attack. + -- Marie Ebner von Eschenbach +% +What is irritating about love is that it is a crime that requires an accomplice. + -- Charles Baudelaire +% +When your life is a leaf that the seasons tear off and condemn They will bind you with love that is graceful and green as a stem. + -- Leonard Cohen, "Sisters of Mercy" +% +Why I Can't Go Out With You: + +I'd LOVE to, but ... + -- I have to floss my cat. + -- I've dedicated my life to linguini. + -- I need to spend more time with my blender. + -- it wouldn't be fair to the other Beautiful People. + -- it's my night to pet the dog/ferret/goldfish. + -- I'm going downtown to try on some gloves. + -- I have to check the freshness dates on my dairy products. + -- I'm going down to the bakery to watch the buns rise. + -- I have an appointment with a cuticle specialist. + -- I have some really hard words to look up. + -- I've got a Friends of the Lowly Rutabaga meeting. + -- I promised to help a friend fold road maps. +% +Why I Can't Go Out With You: + +I'd LOVE to, but... + -- I have to answer all of my "occupant" letters. + -- None of my socks match. + -- I'm having all my plants neutered. + -- I changed the lock on my door and now I can't get out. + -- My yucca plant is feeling yucky. + -- I'm touring China with a wok band. + -- My chocolate-appreciation class meets that night. + -- I'm running off to Yugoslavia with a foreign-exchange student + named Basil Metabolism. + -- There are important world issues that need worrying about. + -- I'm going to count the bristles in my toothbrush. + -- I prefer to remain an enigma. + -- I think you want the OTHER Peggy/Cathy/Mike/whomever. + -- I feel a song coming on. +% +Why I Can't Go Out With You: + +I'd LOVE to, but... + -- I have to draw "Cubby" for an art scholarship. + -- I have to sit up with a sick ant. + -- I'm trying to be less popular. + -- My bathroom tiles need grouting. + -- I'm waiting to see if I'm already a winner. + -- My subconscious says no. + -- I just picked up a book called "Glue in Many Lands" and I + can't seem to put it down. + -- My favorite commercial is on TV. + -- I have to study for my blood test. + -- I've been traded to Cincinnati. + -- I'm having my baby shoes bronzed. + -- I have to go to court for kitty littering. +% +Why I Can't Go Out With You: + +I'd LOVE to, but... + -- I'm trying to see how long I can go without saying yes. + -- I'm attending the opening of my garage door. + -- The monsters haven't turned blue yet, and I have to eat more dots. + -- I'm converting my calendar watch from Julian to Gregorian. + -- I have to fulfill my potential. + -- I don't want to leave my comfort zone. + -- It's too close to the turn of the century. + -- I have to bleach my hare. + -- I'm worried about my vertical hold knob. + -- I left my body in my other clothes. +% +Why I Can't Go Out With You: + +I'd LOVE to, but... + -- I've got a Friends of the Lowly Rutabaga meeting. + -- I promised to help a friend fold road maps. + -- I've been scheduled for a karma transplant. + -- I'm staying home to work on my cottage cheese sculpture. + -- It's my parakeet's bowling night. + -- I'm building a plant from a kit. + -- There's a disturbance in the Force. + -- I'm doing door-to-door collecting for static cling. + -- I'm teaching my ferret to yodel. + -- My crayons all melted together. +% +"Why must you tell me all your secrets when it's hard enough to love you knowing nothing?" + -- Lloyd Cole and the Commotions +% +Without love intelligence is dangerous; without intelligence love is not enough. + -- Ashley Montagu +% +Wouldn't this be a great world if being insecure and desperate were a turn-on? + -- "Broadcast News" +% +Yeah, there are more important things in life than money, but they won't go out with you if you don't have any. +% diff --git a/data/etc/fortunes/Magic b/data/etc/fortunes/Magic new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..dfed12b899 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/etc/fortunes/Magic @@ -0,0 +1,94 @@ +A Thaum is the basic unit of magical strength. It has been universally established as the amount of magic needed to create one small white pigeon or three normal sized billiard balls. + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic" +% +"A wizard cannot do everything; a fact most magicians are reticent to admit, let alone discuss with prospective clients. Still, the fact remains that there are certain objects, and people, that are, for one reason or another, completely immune to any direct magical spell. It is for this group of beings that the magician learns the subtleties of using indirect spells. It also does no harm, in dealing with these matters, to carry a large club near your person at all times." + -- The Teachings of Ebenezum, Volume VIII +% +An ancient proverb summed it up: when a wizard is tired of looking for broken glass in his dinner, it ran, he is tired of life. + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic" +% +Chaos is King and Magic is loose in the world. +% +Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they become soggy and hard to light. + +Do not throw cigarette butts in the urinal, for they are subtle and quick to anger. +% +"Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup." +% +Eight was also the Number of Bel-Shamharoth, which was why a sensible wizard would never mention the number if he could avoid it. Or you'll be eight alive, apprentices were jocularly warned. Bel-Shamharoth was especially attracted to dabblers in magic who, by being as it were beachcombers on the shores of the unnatural, were already half-enmeshed in his nets. +Rincewind's room number in his hall of residence had been 7a. He hadn't been surprised. + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Sending of Eight" +% +"How do you know she is a unicorn?" Molly demanded. "And why were you afraid to let her touch you? I saw you. You were afraid of her." + "I doubt that I will feel like talking for very long," the cat replied without rancor. "I would not waste time in foolishness if I were you. As to your first question, no cat out of its first fur can ever be deceived by appearances. Unlike human beings, who enjoy them. As for your +second question --" Here he faltered, and suddenly became very interested in washing; nor would he speak until he had licked himself fluffy and then licked himself smooth again. Even then he would not look at Molly, but examined his claws. + "If she had touched me," he said very softly, "I would have been hers and not my own, not ever again." + -- Peter S. Beagle, "The Last Unicorn" +% +It is a well known fact that warriors and wizards do not get along, because one side considers the other side to be a collection of bloodthirsty idiots who can't walk and think at the same time, while the other side is naturally suspicious of a body of men who mumble a lot and wear long dresses. Oh, say the wizards, if we're going to be like that, then, what about all those studded collars and oiled muscles down at the Young Men's Pagan Association? To which the heroes reply, that's a pretty good allegation from a bunch of wimpsoes who won't go near a woman on account, can you believe it, of their mystical power being sort of drained out. Right, say the wizards, that just about does it, you and your leather posing pouches. "Oh yeah, say the the heroes, why don't you ..." + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic" +% +It is well known that *things* from undesirable universes are always seeking an entrance into this one, which is the psychic equivalent of handy for the buses and closer to the shops. + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic" +% + It seems there's this magician working one of the luxury cruise ships for a few years. He doesn't have to change his routines much as the audiences change over fairly often, and he's got a good life. The only problem is the ship's parrot, who perches in the hall and watches him night after night, year after year. Finally, the parrot figures out how almost every trick works and starts giving it away for the audience. For example, when the magician makes a bouquet of flowers disappear, the parrot squawks "Behind his back! Behind his back!" Well, the magician is really annoyed at this, but there's not much he can do about it as the parrot is a ship's mascot and very popular with the passengers. + One night, the ship strikes some floating debris, and sinks without a trace. Almost everyone aboard was lost, except for the magician and the parrot. For three days and nights they just drift, with the magician clinging to one end of a piece of driftwood and the parrot perched on the other end. As the sun rises on the morning of the fourth day, the parrot walks over to the magician's end of the log. With obvious disgust in his voice, he snaps "OK, you win, I give up. Where did you hide the ship?" +% +Knowledge is power -- knowledge shared is power lost. + -- Aleister Crowley +% +Magic is always the best solution -- especially reliable magic. +% +No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife in the shoulder blades will seriously cramp his style. +% +Rincewind had generally been considered by his tutors to be a natural wizard in the same way that fish are natural mountaineers. He probably would have been thrown out of Unseen University anyway -- he couldn't remember spells and smoking made him feel ill. + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic" +% +Somewhere, just out of sight, the unicorns are gathering. +% +The default Magic Word, "Abracadabra", actually is a corruption of the Hebrew phrase "ha-Bracha dab'ra" which means "pronounce the blessing". +% +"The first rule of magic is simple. Don't waste your time waving your hands and hoping when a rock or a club will do." + -- McCloctnik the Lucid +% + The seven eyes of Ningauble the Wizard floated back to his hood as he reported to Fafhrd: "I have seen much, yet cannot explain all. The Gray Mouser is exactly twenty-five feet below the deepest cellar in the palace of Gilpkerio Kistomerces. Even though twenty-four parts in twenty-five of him are dead, he is alive. + "Now about Lankhmar. She's been invaded, her walls breached everywhere and desperate fighting is going on in the streets, by a fierce host which out-numbers Lankhamar's inhabitants by fifty to one -- and equipped with all modern weapons. Yet you can save the city." + "How?" demanded Fafhrd. + Ningauble shrugged. "You're a hero. You should know." + -- Fritz Leiber, "The Swords of Lankhmar" +% + "Then what is magic for?" Prince Lir demanded wildly. "What use is wizardry if it cannot save a unicorn?" He gripped the magician's shoulder hard, to keep from falling. + Schmendrick did not turn his head. With a touch of sad mockery in his voice, he said, "That's what heroes are for." +... + "Yes, of course," he [Prince Lir] said. "That is exactly what heroes are for. Wizards make no difference, so they say that nothing does, but heroes are meant to die for unicorns." + -- Peter Beagle, "The Last Unicorn" +% +There are those who claim that magic is like the tide; that it swells and fades over the surface of the earth, collecting in concentrated pools here and there, almost disappearing from other spots, leaving them parched for wonder. There are also those who believe that if you stick your fingers up your nose and blow, it will increase your intelligence. + -- The Teachings of Ebenezum, Volume VII +% +Unseen University had never admitted women, muttering something about problems with the plumbing, but the real reason was an unspoken dread that if women were allowed to mess around with magic they would probably be embarrassingly good at it ... + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic" +% +Using words to describe magic is like using a screwdriver to cut roast beef. + -- Tom Robbins +% + "Verily and forsooth," replied Goodgulf darkly. "In the past year strange and fearful wonders I have seen. Fields sown with barley reap crabgrass and fungus, and even small gardens reject their artichoke hearts. There has been a hot day in December and a blue moon. Calendars are made with a month of Sundays and a blue-ribbon Holstein bore alive two insurance salesmen. The earth splits and the entrails of a goat were found tied in square knots. The face of the sun blackens and the skies have rained down soggy potato chips." + "But what do all these things mean?" gasped Frito. + "Beats me," said Goodgulf with a shrug, "but I thought it made good +copy." + -- Harvard Lampoon, "Bored of the Rings" +% +Watch Rincewind. + +Look at him. Scrawny, like most wizards, and clad in a dark red robe on which a few mystic sigils were embroidered in tarnished sequins. Some might have taken him for a mere apprentice enchanter who had run away from his master out of defiance, boredom, fear and a lingering taste for heterosexuality. Yet around his neck was a chain bearing the bronze octagon that marked him as an alumnus of Unseen University, the high school of magic whose time-and-space transcendent campus is never precisely Here or There. Graduates were usually destined for mageship at least, but Rincewind--after an unfortunate event--had left knowing only one spell and made a living of sorts around the town by capitalizing on an innate gift for languages. He avoided work as a rule, but had a quickness of wit that put his acquaintances in mind of a bright rodent. + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Colour of Magic" +% +What is a magician but a practising theorist? + -- Obi-Wan Kenobi +% +What use is magic if it can't save a unicorn? + -- Peter S. Beagle, "The Last Unicorn" +% +When I say the magic word to all these people, they will vanish forever. I will then say the magic words to you, and you, too, will vanish -- never to be seen again. + -- Kurt Vonnegut Jr., "Between Time and Timbuktu" +% diff --git a/data/etc/fortunes/Medicine b/data/etc/fortunes/Medicine new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..4097ccbe9d --- /dev/null +++ b/data/etc/fortunes/Medicine @@ -0,0 +1,258 @@ +A CODE OF ETHICAL BEHAVIOR FOR PATIENTS: + +1. DO NOT EXPECT YOUR DOCTOR TO SHARE YOUR DISCOMFORT. + Involvement with the patient's suffering might cause him to lose valuable scientific objectivity. + +2. BE CHEERFUL AT ALL TIMES. + Your doctor leads a busy and trying life and requires all the gentleness and reassurance he can get. + +3. TRY TO SUFFER FROM THE DISEASE FOR WHICH YOU ARE BEING TREATED. + Remember that your doctor has a professional reputation to uphold. +% +A CODE OF ETHICAL BEHAVIOR FOR PATIENTS: + +4. DO NOT COMPLAIN IF THE TREATMENT FAILS TO BRING RELIEF. + You must believe that your doctor has achieved a deep insight into the true nature of your illness, which transcends any mere permanent disability you may have experienced. + +5. NEVER ASK YOUR DOCTOR TO EXPLAIN WHAT HE IS DOING OR WHY HE IS DOING IT. + It is presumptuous to assume that such profound matters could be explained in terms that you would understand. + +6. SUBMIT TO NOVEL EXPERIMANTAL TREATMENT READILY. + Though the surgery may not benefit you directly, the resulting research paper will surely be of widespread interest. +% +A CODE OF ETHICAL BEHAVIOR FOR PATIENTS: + +7. PAY YOUR MEDICAL BILLS PROMPTLY AND WILLINGLY. + You should consider it a privilege to contribute, however modestly, to the well-being of physicians and other humanitarians. + +8. DO NOT SUFFER FROM AILMENTS THAT YOU CANNOT AFFORD. + It is sheer arrogance to contract illnesses that are beyond your means. + +9. NEVER REVEAL ANY OF THE SHORTCOMINGS THAT HAVE COME TO LIGHT IN THE COURSE OF TREATMENT BY YOUR DOCTOR. + The patient-doctor relationship is a privileged one, and you have a + sacred duty to protect him from exposure. + +10. NEVER DIE WHILE IN YOUR DOCTOR'S PRESENCE OR UNDER HIS DIRECT CARE. + This will only cause him needless inconvenience and embarrassment. +% +A distraught patient phoned her doctor's office. "Was it true," the woman inquired, "that the medication the doctor had prescribed was for the rest of her life?" + She was told that it was. There was just a moment of silence before the woman proceeded bravely on. "Well, I'm wondering, then, how serious my condition is. This prescription is marked `NO REFILLS'". +% +A doctor calls his patient to give him the results of his tests. "I have some bad news," says the doctor, "and some worse news." The bad news is +that you only have six weeks to live." + "Oh, no," says the patient. "What could possibly be worse than that?" + "Well," the doctor replies, "I've been trying to reach you since last Monday." +% +A woman physician has made the statement that smoking is neither physically defective nor morally degrading, and that nicotine, even when indulged to in excess, is less harmful than excessive petting." + -- Purdue Exponent, Jan 16, 1925 +% +A woman went into a hospital one day to give birth. Afterwards, the doctor came to her and said, "I have some... odd news for you." + "Is my baby all right?" the woman anxiously asked. + "Yes, he is," the doctor replied, "but we don't know how. Your son (we assume) was born with no body. He only has a head." + Well, the doctor was correct. The Head was alive and well, though no one knew how. The Head turned out to be fairly normal, ignoring his lack of a body, and lived for some time as typical a life as could be expected under the circumstances. + One day, about twenty years after the fateful birth, the woman got a phone call from another doctor. The doctor said, "I have recently perfected an operation. Your son can live a normal life now: we can graft a body onto his head!" + The woman, practically weeping with joy, thanked the doctor and hung up. She ran up the stairs saying, "Johnny, Johnny, I have a *wonderful* surprise for you!" + "Oh no," cried The Head, "not another HAT!" +% +After twelve years of therapy my psychiatrist said something that brought tears to my eyes. He said, "No hablo ingles." + -- Ronnie Shakes +% +Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist ought to have his head examined. + -- Samuel Goldwyn +% +Aquavit is also considered useful for medicinal purposes, an essential ingredient in what I was once told is the Norwegian cure for the common cold. You get a bottle, a poster bed, and the brightest colored stocking cap you can find. You put the cap on the post at the foot of the bed, +then get into bed and drink aquavit until you can't see the cap. I've never tried this, but it sounds as though it should work. + -- Peter Nelson +% + As a general rule of thumb, never trust anybody who's been in therapy for more than 15 percent of their life span. The words "I am sorry" and "I am wrong" will have totally disappeared from their vocabulary. They will stab you, shoot you, break things in your apartment, say horrible things to your friends and family, and then justify this abhorrent behavior by saying: +"Sure, I put your dog in the microwave. But I feel *better* for doing it." + -- Bruce Feirstein, "Nice Guys Sleep Alone" +% +At the hospital, a doctor is training an intern on how to announce bad news to the patients. The doctor tells the intern "This man in 305 is going to +die in six months. Go in and tell him." The intern boldly walks into the room, over to the man's bedisde and tells him "Seems like you're gonna die!" +The man has a heart attack and is rushed into surgery on the spot. The doctor grabs the intern and screams at him, "What!?!? are you some kind of moron? You've got to take it easy, work your way up to the subject. Now this man in 213 has about a week to live. Go in and tell him, but, gently, you hear me, gently!" + The intern goes softly into the room, humming to himself, cheerily opens the drapes to let the sun in, walks over to the man's bedside, fluffs +his pillow and wishes him a "Good morning!" "Wonderful day, no? Say... guess who's going to die soon!" +% +Be a better psychiatrist and the world will beat a psychopath to your door. +% +Better to use medicines at the outset than at the last moment. +% +Certain old men prefer to rise at dawn, taking a cold bath and a long walk with an empty stomach and otherwise mortifying the flesh. They then point with pride to these practices as the cause of their sturdy health and ripe years; the truth being that they are hearty and old, not because of their habits, but in spite of them. The reason we find only robust persons doing this thing is that it has killed all the others who have tried it. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Cure the disease and kill the patient. + -- Francis Bacon +% +Death has been proven to be 99% fatal in laboratory rats. +% +Dental health is next to mental health. +% +Ever notice that the word "therapist" breaks down into "the rapist"? Simple coincidence? Maybe... +% +For my son, Robert, this is proving to be the high-point of his entire life to date. He has had his pajamas on for two, maybe three days now. He has the sense of joyful independence a 5-year-old child gets when he suddenly realizes that he could be operating an acetylene torch in the coat closet and neither parent [because of the flu] would have the strength to object. He has been foraging for his own food, which means his diet consists entirely of "food" substances which are advertised only on Saturday-morning cartoon shows; substances that are the color of jukebox lights and that, for legal reasons, have their names spelled wrong, as in New Creemy Chok-'n'-Cheez Lumps o' Froot ("part of this complete breakfast"). + -- Dave Barry, "Molecular Homicide" +% +Fortune's Exercising Truths: + +1: Richard Simmons gets paid to exercise like a lunatic. You don't. +2. Aerobic exercises stimulate and speed up the heart. So do heart attacks. +3. Exercising around small children can scar them emotionally for life. +4. Sweating like a pig and gasping for breath is not refreshing. +5. No matter what anyone tells you, isometric exercises cannot be done quietly at your desk at work. People will suspect manic tendencies as you twitter around in your chair. +6. Next to burying bones, the thing a dog enjoys mosts is tripping joggers. +7. Locking four people in a tiny, cement-walled room so they can run around for an hour smashing a little rubber ball -- and each other -- with a hard racket should immediately be recognized for what it is: a form of insanity. +8. Fifty push-ups, followed by thirty sit-ups, followed by ten chin-ups, followed by one throw-up. +9. Any activity that can't be done while smoking should be avoided. +% +[From an announcement of a congress of the International Ontopsychology Association, in Rome]: + +The Ontopsychological school, availing itself of new research criteria and of a new telematic epistemology, maintains that social modes do not spring from dialectics of territory or of class, or of consumer goods, or of means of power, but rather from dynamic latencies capillarized in millions of individuals in system functions which, once they have reached the event maturation, burst forth in catastrophic phenomenology engaging a suitable stereotype protagonist or duty marionette (general, president, political party, etc.) to consummate the act of social schizophrenia in mass genocide. +% +God is dead and I don't feel all too well either.... + -- Ralph Moonen +% +"Good health" is merely the slowest rate at which one can die. +% +Happiness is good health and a bad memory. + -- Ingrid Bergman +% +Health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die. +% +Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing. + -- Redd Foxx +% +His ideas of first-aid stopped short of squirting soda water. + -- P.G. Wodehouse +% +Human cardiac catheterization was introduced by Werner Forssman in 1929. Ignoring his department chief, and tying his assistant to an operating +table to prevent her interference, he placed a ureteral catheter into a vein in his arm, advanced it to the right atrium [of his heart], and walked upstairs to the x-ray department where he took the confirmatory x-ray film. In 1956, Dr. Forssman was awarded the Nobel Prize. +% +I get my exercise acting as pallbearer to my friends who exercise. + -- Chauncey Depew +% +I got the bill for my surgery. Now I know what those doctors were wearing masks for. + -- James Boren +% +"I keep seeing spots in front of my eyes." +"Did you ever see a doctor?" +"No, just spots." +% +If a person (a) is poorly, (b) receives treatment intended to make him better, and (c) gets better, then no power of reasoning known to medical science can convince him that it may not have been the treatment that restored his health. + -- Sir Peter Medawar, "The Art of the Soluble" +% +If I kiss you, that is an psychological interaction. On the other hand, if I hit you over the head with a brick, that is also a psychological interaction. The difference is that one is friendly and the other is not so friendly. The crucial point is if you can tell which is which. + -- Dolph Sharp, "I'm O.K., You're Not So Hot" +% +If you look like your driver's license photo, see a doctor. If you look like your passport photo, it's too late for a doctor. +% +It is very vulgar to talk like a dentist when one isn't a dentist. It produces a false impression. + -- Oscar Wilde. +% +It's no longer a question of staying healthy. It's a question of finding a sickness you like. + -- Jackie Mason +% +It's not reality or how you perceive things that's important -- it's what you're taking for it... +% +Just because your doctor has a name for your condition doesn't mean he knows what it is. +% +Laetrile is the pits. +% +My doctorate's in Literature, but it seems like a pretty good pulse to me. +% +Neurotics build castles in the sky, +Psychotics live in them, +And psychiatrists collect the rent. +% +Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died. + -- Erma Bombeck +% +New England Life, of course. Why do you ask? +% + page 46 +...a report citing a study by Dr. Thomas C. Chalmers, of the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York, which compared two groups that were being used to test the theory that ascorbic acid is a cold preventative. "The group on placebo who thought they were on ascorbic acid," says Dr. Chalmers, "had fewer colds than the group on ascorbic acid who thought they were on placebo." + page 56 +The placebo is proof that there is no real separation between mind and body. Illness is always an interaction between both. It can begin in the mind and affect the body, or it can begin in the body and affect the mind, both of which are served by the same bloodstream. Attempts to treat most mental diseases as though they were completely free of physical causes and attempts to treat most bodily diseases as though the mind were in no way involved must be considered archaic in the light of new evidence about the way the human body functions. + -- Norman Cousins, + "Anatomy of an Illness as Perceived by the Patient" +% +Paralysis through analysis. +% +Proper treatment will cure a cold in seven days, but left to itself, a cold will hang on for a week. + -- Darrell Huff +% +Psychiatry enables us to correct our faults by confessing our parents' shortcomings. + -- Laurence J. Peter, "Peter's Principles" +% +Psychoanalysis is that mental illness for which it regards itself a therapy. + -- Karl Kraus + +Psychiatry is the care of the id by the odd. + +Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you. + -- C.G. Jung +% +Psychology. Mind over matter. Mind under matter? It doesn't matter. Never mind. +% +Pushing 30 is exercise enough. +% +Pushing 40 is exercise enough. +% +Quit worrying about your health. It'll go away. + -- Robert Orben +% +Sigmund's wife wore Freudian slips. +% +Some people need a good imaginary cure for their painful imaginary ailment. +% +Sometimes the best medicine is to stop taking something. +% +Straw? No, too stupid a fad. I put soot on warts. +% +Stress has been pinpointed as a major cause of illness. To avoid overload and burnout, keep stress out of your life. Give it to others instead. Learn the "Gaslight" treatment, the "Are you talking to me?" technique, and the "Do you feel okay? You look pale." approach. Start with negotiation and implication. Advance to manipulation and humiliation. Above all, relax and have a nice day. +% +The 80's -- when you can't tell hairstyles from chemotherapy. +% +"... the Mayo Clinic, named after its founder, Dr. Ted Clinic ..." + -- Dave Barry +% +"The molars, I'm sure, will be all right, the molars can take care of themselves," the old man said, no longer to me. "But what will become of the bicuspids?" + -- The Old Man and his Bridge +% +The New England Journal of Medicine reports that 9 out of 10 doctors agree that 1 out of 10 doctors is an idiot. +% +The real reason psychology is hard is that psychologists are trying to do the impossible. +% +The reason they're called wisdom teeth is that the experience makes you wise. +% +The secret of healthy hitchhiking is to eat junk food. +% +The trouble with heart disease is that the first symptom is often hard to deal with: death. + -- Michael Phelps +% +The Vet Who Surprised A Cow + In the course of his duties in August 1977, a Dutch veterinary surgeon was required to treat an ailing cow. To investigate its internal gases he inserted a tube into that end of the animal not capable of facial expression and struck a match. The jet of flame set fire first to some bales of hay and then to the whole farm causing damage estimate at L45,000. The vet was later fined L140 for starting a fire in a manner surprising to the magistrates. The cow escaped with shock. + -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" +% +We have the flu. I don't know if this particular strain has an official name, but if it does, it must be something like "Martian Death Flu". You may have had it yourself. The main symptom is that you wish you had another setting on your electric blanket, up past "HIGH", that said "ELECTROCUTION". + Another symptom is that you cease brushing your teeth, because (a) your teeth hurt, and (b) you lack the strength. Midway through the brushing process, you'd have to lie down in front of the sink to rest for a couple of hours, and rivulets of toothpaste foam would dribble sideways out of your mouth, eventually hardening into crusty little toothpaste stalagmites that would bond your head permanently to the bathroom floor, which is how the police would find you. + You know the kind of flu I'm talking about. + -- Dave Barry, "Molecular Homicide" +% + "Welcome back for your 13th consecutive week, Evelyn. Evelyn, will you go into the auto-suggestion booth and take your regular place on the psycho-prompter couch?" + "Thank you, Red." + "Now, Evelyn, last week you went up to $40,000 by properly citing your rivalry with your sibling as a compulsive sado-masochistic behavior pattern which developed out of an early post-natal feeding problem." + "Yes, Red." + "But -- later, when asked about pre-adolescent oedipal phantasy repressions, you rationalized twice and mental blocked three times. Now, at $300 per rationalization and $500 per mental block you lost $2,100 off your $40,000, leaving you with a total of $37,900. Now, any combination of two more mental blocks and either one rationalization or three defensive projections will put you out of the game. Are you willing to go ahead?" + "Yes, Red." + "I might say here that all of Evelyn's questions and answers have been checked for accuracy with her analyst. Now, Evelyn, for $80,000 explain the failure of your three marriages." + "Well, I--" + "We'll get back to Evelyn in one minute. First a word about our product." + -- Jules Feiffer +% +When a lot of remedies are suggested for a disease, that means it can't be cured. + -- Anton Chekhov, "The Cherry Orchard" +% +Your digestive system is your body's Fun House, whereby food goes on a long, dark, scary ride, taking all kinds of unexpected twists and turns, being attacked by vicious secretions along the way, and not knowing until the last minute whether it will be turned into a useful body part or ejected into the Dark Hole by Mister Sphincter. We Americans live in a nation where the medical-care system is second to none in the world, unless you count maybe 25 or 30 little scuzzball countries like Scotland that we could vaporize in seconds if we felt like it. + -- Dave Barry, "Stay Fit & Healthy Until You're Dead" +% diff --git a/data/etc/fortunes/Miscellaneous b/data/etc/fortunes/Miscellaneous new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..ff1b2f477c --- /dev/null +++ b/data/etc/fortunes/Miscellaneous @@ -0,0 +1,936 @@ +A crow perched himself on a telephone wire. He was going to make a long-distance caw. +% +A log may float in a river, but that does not make it a crocodile. +% +A pickup with three guys in it pulls into the lumber yard. One of the men gets out and goes into the office. + +"I need some four-by-two's," he says. +"You must mean two-by-four's" replies the clerk. +The man scratches his head. "Wait a minute," he says, "I'll go check." + Back, after an animated conversation with the other occupants of the truck, he reassures the clerk, that, yes, in fact, two-by-fours would be acceptable. +"OK," says the clerk, writing it down, "how long you want 'em?" +The guy gets the blank look again. "Uh... I guess I better go check," he says. + He goes back out to the truck, and there's another animated conversation. The guy comes back into the office. "A long time," he says, "we're building a house". +% +A prediction is worth twenty explanations. + -- K. Brecher +% +A reverend wanted to telephone another reverend. He told the operator, "This is a parson to parson call." +% +A squeegee by any other name wouldn't sound as funny. +% +A young girl, Carmen Cohen, was called by her last name by her father, and her first name by her mother. By the time she was ten, didn't know if she was Carmen or Cohen. +% +According to my best recollection, I don't remember. + -- Vincent "Jimmy Blue Eyes" Alo +% +Adults die young. +% +Age is a tyrant who forbids, at the penalty of life, all the pleasures of youth. +% +Agree with them now, it will save so much time. +% +Ah, the Tsar's bazaar's bizarre beaux-arts! +% +All phone calls are obscene. + -- Karen Elizabeth Gordon +% +All the really good ideas I ever had came to me while I was milking a cow. + -- Grant Wood +% +Am I ranting? I hope so. My ranting gets raves. +% +AMAZING BUT TRUE: + +If all the salmon caught in Canada in one year were laid end to end across the Sahara Desert, the smell would be absolutely awful. +% +AMAZING BUT TRUE: + +There is so much sand in Northern Africa that if it were spread out it would completely cover the Sahara Desert. +% +Amnesia used to be my favorite word, but then I forgot it. +% +An atom blaster is a good weapon, but it can point both ways. + -- Isaac Asimov +% +And I alone am returned to wag the tail. +% +Any stone in your boot always migrates against the pressure gradient to exactly the point of most pressure. + -- Milt Barber +% +Any time things appear to be going better, you have overlooked something. +% +As Zeus said to Narcissus, "Watch yourself." +% +Bare feet magnetize sharp metal objects so they point upward from the floor -- especially in the dark. +% +BE ALERT!!!! (The world needs more lerts...) + +BE ALOOF! (There has been a recent population explosion of lerts.) +% +Before I knew the best part of my life had come, it had gone. +% +Being frustrated is disagreeable, but the real disasters in life begin when you get what you want. +% +Biggest security gap -- an open mouth. +% +Bizarreness is the essence of the exotic. +% +Blessed are they who Go Around in Circles, for they Shall be Known as Wheels. +% +Boy, that crayon sure did hurt! +% +Bushydo -- the way of the shrub. Bonsai! +% +But like the Good Book says... There's BIGGER DEALS to come! +% +By perseverance the snail reached the Ark. + -- Charles Spurgeon +% +CF&C stole it, fair and square. + -- Tim Hahn +% + Chapter VIII + +Due to the convergence of forces beyond his comprehension, Salvatore Quanucci was suddenly squirted out of the universe like a watermelon seed, and never heard from again. +% +Confucius say too much. + -- Recent Chinese Proverb +% +Congratulations are in order for Tom Reid. + +He says he just found out he is the winner of the 2021 Psychic of the Year award. +% +Culture is the habit of being pleased with the best and knowing why. +% +Custer committed Siouxicide. +% +"Whatever the missing mass of the universe is, I hope it's not cockroaches!" + -- Mom +% +Death to all fanatics! +% +Depart in pieces, i.e., split. +% +Deprive a mirror of its silver and even the Czar won't see his face. +% +Did you hear about the model who sat on a broken bottle and cut a nice figure? +% +DID YOU KNOW: + +That no-one ever reads these things? +% +"Die? I should say not, dear fellow. No Barrymore would allow such a conventional thing to happen to him." + -- John Barrymore's dying words +% +Dignity is like a flag. It flaps in a storm. + -- Roy Mengot +% +Dime is money. +% +Do not use that foreign word "ideals". We have that excellent native word "lies". + -- Henrik Ibsen, "The Wild Duck" +% +Do people know you have freckles everywhere? +% +Do students of Zen Buddhism do Om-work? +% +"Do you believe in intuition?" +"No, but I have a strange feeling that someday I will." +% +Do you have lysdexia? +% +Does a one-legged duck swim in a circle? +% +Don't force it, get a larger hammer. + -- Anthony +% +Don't guess -- check your security regulations. +% +Don't let your status become too quo! +% +Don't speak about Time, until you have spoken to him. +% +Don't worry if you're a kleptomaniac; you can always take something for it. +% +Dr. Jekyll had something to Hyde. +% +Dr. Livingston? +Dr. Livingston I. Presume? +% +Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing. +% +Dreams are free, but there's a small charge for alterations. +% +Drop the vase and it will become a Ming of the past. + -- The Adventurer +% +Duckies are fun! +% +Ducks? What ducks?? +% + During a fight, a husband threw a bowl of Jello at his wife. She had him arrested for carrying a congealed weapon. In another fight, the wife decked him with a heavy glass pitcher. She's a woman who conks to stupor. +% +Dyslexia means never having to say that you're ysror. +% +Dyslexics have more fnu. +% +DYSLEXICS OF THE WORLD, UNTIE! +% +"Earth is a great, big funhouse without the fun." + -- Jeff Berner +% +Editing is a rewording activity. +% +Eggheads unite! You have nothing to lose but your yolks. + -- Adlai Stevenson +% +Events are not affected, they develop. + -- Sri Aurobindo +% +Ever wonder why fire engines are red? + +Because newspapers are read too. +Two and Two is four. +Four and four is eight. +Eight and four is twelve. +There are twelve inches in a ruler. +Queen Mary was a ruler. +Queen Mary was a ship. +Ships sail the sea. +There are fishes in the sea. +Fishes have fins. +The Finns fought the Russians. +Russians are red. +Fire engines are always rush'n. +Therefore fire engines are red. +% +Every absurdity has a champion who will defend it. +% +Every day it's the same thing -- variety. I want something different. +% +Every time I think I know where it's at, they move it. +% +Every time you manage to close the door on Reality, it comes in through the window. +% +Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness. + -- Beckett +% +Everything bows to success, even grammar. +% +Everything can be filed under "miscellaneous". +% +Everything might be different in the present if only one thing had been different in the past. +% +Everything should be built top-down... except the first time. +% +Everything takes longer, costs more, and is less useful. + -- Erwin Tomash +% +Everything you know is wrong! +% +Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. + -- Aldous Huxley +% +Facts apart from their relationships are like labels on empty bottles. + -- Sven Italla +% +Far duller than a serpent's tooth it is to spend a quiet youth. +% +Fats Loves Madelyn. +% +Finding out what goes on in the C.I.A. is like performing acupuncture on a rock. + -- New York Times, Jan. 20, 1981 +% +Five bicycles make a volkswagen, seven make a truck. + -- Adolfo Guzman +% +Flame on! + -- Johnny Storm +% +Fly me away to the bright side of the moon ... +% +For a holy stint, a moth of the cloth gave up his woolens for lint. +% +For thee the wonder-working earth puts forth sweet flowers. + -- Titus Lucretius Carus +% +Force it!!! +If it breaks, well, it wasn't working anyway... +No, don't force it, get a bigger hammer. +% +FORCE YOURSELF TO RELAX! +% +Forest fires cause Smokey Bears. +% +Fortune's graffiti of the week (or maybe even month): + + Don't Write On Walls! + + (and underneath) + + You want I should type? +% +Fortune's Office Door Sign of the Week: + + Incorrigible punster -- Do not incorrige. +% + "Found it," the Mouse replied rather crossly: "of course you know what 'it' means." + "I know what 'it' means well enough, when I find a thing," said the Duck: "it's generally a frog or a worm. The question is, what did the archbishop find?" +% +From a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back. That is the point that must be reached. + -- F. Kafka +% +Furious activity is no substitute for understanding. + -- H.H. Williams +% +General notions are generally wrong. + -- Lady M.W. Montagu +% +Give me a Plumber's friend the size of the Pittsburgh dome, and a place to stand, and I will drain the world. +% +Given my druthers, I'd druther not. +% +Gloffing is a state of mine. +% +Go away, I'm all right. + -- H.G. Wells' last words. +% +Go climb a gravity well! +% +God is Dead. + -- Nietzsche + +Nietzsche is Dead. + -- God +% +God isn't dead, he just couldn't find a parking place. +% +God made the world in six days, and was arrested on the seventh. +% +God was satisfied with his own work, and that is fatal. + -- Samuel Butler +% +Lord, please give me patience... and I want it right now! +% +Good news is just life's way of keeping you off balance. +% +Happiness makes up in height what it lacks in length. +% +Hard reality has a way of cramping your style. + -- Daniel Dennett +% +Have the courage to take your own thoughts seriously, for they will shape you. + -- Albert Einstein +% +"Have you lived here all your life?" +"Oh, twice that long." +% +Have you noticed that all you need to grow healthy, vigorous grass is a crack in your sidewalk? +% +"He flung himself on his horse and rode madly off in all directions." +% +He who spends a storm beneath a tree, takes life with a grain of TNT. +% +Hedonist for hire... no job too easy! +% +Help a swallow land at Capistrano. +% +Help stamp out and abolish redundancy and repetition. +% +Here there be tygers. +% +"His eyes were cold. As cold as the bitter winter snow that was falling outside. Yes, cold and therefore difficult to chew..." +% +Honk if you hate bumper stickers that say "Honk if ..." +% +Honk if you love peace and quiet. +% +Housework can kill you if done right. + -- Erma Bombeck +% +How can you be in two places at once when you're not anywhere at all? +% +How come only your friends step on your new white sneakers? +% +How come wrong numbers are never busy? +% +I always wake up at the crack of ice. + -- Joe E. Lewis +% +I am the mother of all things, and all things should wear a sweater. +% +I can resist anything but temptation. +% +I couldn't possibly fail to disagree with you less. +% +I despise the pleasure of pleasing people whom I despise. +% +I don't have any solution but I certainly admire the problem. + -- Ashleigh Brilliant +% +"I don't mind going nowhere as long as it's an interesting path." + -- Ronald Mabbitt +% +I don't wish to appear overly inquisitive, but are you still alive? +% +I feel sorry for your brain... all alone in that great big head... +% +"I found out why my car was humming. It had forgotten the words." +% +I hate quotations. + -- Ralph Waldo Emerson +% +I hate trolls. Maybe I could metamorph it into something else -- like a ravenous, two-headed, fire-breathing dragon. + -- Willow +% +I have a terrible headache, I was putting on toilet water and the lid fell. +% +I have seen the Great Pretender and he is not what he seems. +% +I haven't lost my mind; I know exactly where I left it. +% +I hear the sound that the machines make, and feel my heart break, just for a moment. +% +I know it all. I just can't remember it all at once. +% +I know you think you thought you knew what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you understood what you thought I meant. +% +I know you're in search of yourself, I just haven't seen you anywhere. +% +I live the way I type; fast, with a lot of mistakes. +% +I love treason but hate a traitor. + -- Gaius Julius Caesar +% +"I only touch base with reality on an as-needed basis!" + -- Royal Floyd Mengot (Klaus) +% + [I plan] to see, hear, touch, and destroy everything in my path, including beets, rutabagas, and most random vegetables, but excluding yams, as I am absolutely terrified of yams... + Actually, I think my fear of yams began in my early youth, when many of my young comrades pelted me with same for singing songs of far-off lands and deep blue seas in a language closely resembling that of the common sow. My psychosis was further impressed into my soul as I reached adolescence, when, while skipping through a field of yams, light-heartedly tossing flowers into the stratosphere, a great yam-picking machine tore through the fields, pursuing me to the edge of the great plantation, where I escaped by diving into a great ditch filled with a mixture of water and pig manure, which may explain my tendency to scream, "Here come the Martians! Hide the eggs!" every time I have pork. But I digress. The fact remains that I cannot rationally +deal with yams, and pigs are terrible conversationalists. +% +I predict that today will be remembered until tomorrow! +% +I refuse to have a battle of wits with an unarmed person. +% +I understand why you're confused. You're thinking too much. + -- Carole Wallach. +% +I used to be an agnostic, but now I'm not so sure. +% +I used to get high on life but lately I've built up a resistance. +% +I used to think I was indecisive, but now I'm not so sure. +% +I will make you shorter by the head. + -- Elizabeth I +% +I wouldn't be so paranoid if you weren't all out to get me!! +% +I'd be a poorer man if I'd never seen an eagle fly. + -- John Denver + +[I saw an eagle fly once. Fortunately, I had my eagle fly swatter handy. Ed.] +% +I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous. +% +"I'm dying," he croaked. +"My experiment was a success," the chemist retorted . +"You can't really train a beagle," he dogmatized. +"That's no beagle, it's a mongrel," she muttered. +"The fire is going out," he bellowed. +"Bad marksmanship," the hunter groused. +"You ought to see a psychiatrist," he reminded me. +"You snake," she rattled. +"Someone's at the door," she chimed. +"Company's coming," she guessed. +"Dawn came too soon," she mourned. +"I think I'll end it all," Sue sighed. +"I ordered chocolate, not vanilla," I screamed. +"Your embroidery is sloppy," she needled cruelly. +"Where did you get this meat?" he bridled hoarsely. + -- Gyles Brandreth, "The Joy of Lex" +% +I'm glad I was not born before tea. + -- Sidney Smith (1771-1845) +% +I'm going to raise an issue and stick it in your ear. + -- John Foreman +% +I'm not offering myself as an example; every life evolves by its own laws. +% +I'm not prejudiced, I hate everyone equally. +% +I'm not tense, just terribly, terribly alert! +% +I'm prepared for all emergencies but totally unprepared for everyday life. +% +I'm so broke I can't even pay attention. +% +I've enjoyed just about as much of this as I can stand. +% +Idleness is the holiday of fools. +% +"If a camel flies, no one laughs if it doesn't get very far." + -- Paul White +% +If all men were brothers, would you let one marry your sister? +% +If everything is coming your way then you're in the wrong lane. +% +If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something. +% +If I could drop dead right now, I'd be the happiest man alive! + -- Samuel Goldwyn +% +If I don't see you in the future, I'll see you in the pasture. +% +If I love you, what business is it of yours? + -- Johann van Goethe +% +If it doesn't smell yet, it's pretty fresh. + -- Dave Johnson, on dead seagulls +% +If it pours before seven, it has rained by eleven. +% +If it wasn't so warm out today, it would be cooler. +% +If it weren't for the last minute, nothing would ever get done. +% +If life isn't what you wanted, have you asked for anything else? +% +If rabbits' feet are so lucky, what happened to the rabbit? +% +If the ends don't justify the means, then what does? + -- Robert Moses +% +If the English language made any sense, lackadaisical would have something to do with a shortage of flowers. + -- Doug Larson + +[Not to mention, butterfly would be flutterby -- Ed.] +% +If the future isn't what it used to be, does that mean that the past is subject to change in times to come? +% +If the grass is greener on other side of fence, consider what may be fertilizing it. +% +If the meanings of "true" and "false" were switched, then this sentence would not be false. +% +If the odds are a million to one against something occurring, chances are 50-50 it will. +% +If time heals all wounds, how come the belly button stays the same? +% +If you are going to walk on thin ice, you may as well dance. +% +If you can lead it to water and force it to drink, it isn't a horse. +% +If you do not think about the future, you cannot have one. + -- John Galsworthy +% +If you have nothing to do, don't do it here. +% +If you knew what to say next, would you say it? +% +If you know the answer to a question, don't ask. + -- Petersen Nesbit +% +If you stick your head in the sand, one thing is for sure, you're gonna get your rear kicked. +% +If you're right 90% of the time, why quibble about the remaining 3%? +% +Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality. + -- Jules de Gaultier +% +Imagine what we can imagine! + -- Arthur Rubinstein +% +Immanuel doesn't pun, he Kant. +% +Immanuel Kant but Kubla Khan. +% +In case of fire, stand in the hall and shout "Fire!" + -- The Kidner Report +% +In my end is my beginning. + -- Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots +% +In the war of wits, he's unarmed. +% +In this world, truth can wait; she's used to it. +% +Include me out. +% +Indecision is the true basis for flexibility. +% +Indifference will certainly be the downfall of mankind, but who cares? +% +Insomnia isn't anything to lose sleep over. +% +Is death legally binding? +% +Isn't air travel wonderful? Breakfast in London, dinner in New York, luggage in Brazil. +% +It has long been known that birds will occasionally build nests in the manes of horses. The only known solution to this problem is to sprinkle baker's yeast in the mane, for, as we all know, yeast is yeast and nest is nest, and never the mane shall tweet. +% +It is a lesson which all history teaches wise men, to put trust in ideas, and not in circumstances. + -- Emerson +% +It is better never to have been born. But who among us has such luck? One in a million, perhaps. +% +It is better to be bow-legged than no-legged. +% +It is better to kiss an avocado than to get in a fight with an aardvark. +% +It is easier to resist at the beginning than at the end. + -- Leonardo da Vinci +% +It is easier to run down a hill than up one. +% +It is the business of the future to be dangerous. + -- Hawkwind +% +It is very difficult to prophesy, especially when it pertains to the future. +% +It isn't easy being a Friday kind of person in a Monday kind of world. +% +It looks like blind screaming hedonism won out. +% +It occurred to me lately that nothing has occurred to me lately. +% +"It was a virgin forest, a place where the Hand of Man had never set foot." +% +It was one of those perfect summer days -- the sun was shining, a breeze was blowing, the birds were singing, and the lawn mower was broken ... + --- James Dent +% +It was pleasant to me to get a letter from you the other day. Perhaps I should have found it pleasanter if I had been able to decipher it. I don't think that I mastered anything beyond the date (which I knew) and the signature (which I guessed at). There's a singular and a perpetual charm in a letter of yours; it never grows old, it never loses its novelty. Other letters are read and thrown away and forgotten, but yours are kept forever -- unread. One of them will last a reasonable man a lifetime. + -- Thomas Aldrich +% +It wasn't that she had a rose in her teeth, exactly. It was more like the rose and the teeth were in the same glass. +% +It would save me a lot of time if you just gave up and went mad now. +% +It'll be a nice world if they ever get it finished. +% +It's a .88 magnum -- it goes through schools. + -- Danny Vermin +% +It's amazing how much better you feel once you've given up hope. +% +It's not the fall that kills you, it's the landing. +% +It's pretty hard to tell what does bring happiness; poverty and wealth have both failed. + -- Kim Hubbard +% +Join the march to save individuality! +% +Just because everything is different doesn't mean anything has changed. + -- Irene Peter +% +Just give Alice some pencils and she will stay busy for hours. +% +Kiss me twice. I'm schizophrenic. +% +Kissing a fish is like smoking a bicycle. +% +Knocked, you weren't in. + -- Opportunity +% +Know what I hate most? Rhetorical questions. + -- Henry N. Camp +% +Language is a virus from another planet. + -- William Burroughs +% +Laughing at you is like drop kicking a wounded humming bird. +% +Lemmings don't grow older, they just die. +% +Let he who takes the plunge remember to return it by Tuesday. +% +Let me put it this way: today is going to be a learning experience. +% +Let others praise ancient times; I am glad I was born in these. + -- Ovid (43 B.C. - A.D. 18) +% +Let's remind ourselves that last year's fresh idea is today's cliche. + -- Austen Briggs +% +Life being what it is, one dreams of revenge. + -- Paul Gauguin +% +Life is both difficult and time consuming. +% +Life is fraught with opportunities to keep your mouth shut. +% +Life is just a bowl of cherries, but why do I always get the pits? +% +Life is like an analogy. +% +Life would be tolerable but for its amusements. + -- G.B. Shaw +% +Like winter snow on summer lawn, time past is time gone. +% +Look! Before our very eyes, the future is becoming the past. +% +Lost interest? It's so bad I've lost apathy. +% +Love the sea? I dote upon it -- from the beach. +% +Luck can't last a lifetime, unless you die young. + -- Russell Banks +% +Man who falls in blast furnace is certain to feel overwrought. +% +Man who falls in vat of molten optical glass makes spectacle of self. +% +Man who sleep in beer keg wake up sticky. +% +May your camel be as swift as the wind. +% +May your Tongue stick to the Roof of your Mouth with the Force of a Thousand Caramels. +% +Memory should be the starting point of the present. +% +Microbiology Lab: Staph Only! +% +Mirrors should reflect a little before throwing back images. + -- Jean Cocteau +% +Monday is an awful way to spend one seventh of your life. +% +Most burning issues generate far more heat than light. +% +Most general statements are false, including this one. + -- Alexander Dumas +% +Mother is far too clever to understand anything she does not like. + -- Arnold Bennett +% +Must be getting close to town -- we're hitting more people. +% +My interest is in the future because I am going to spend the rest of my life there. +% +My, how you've changed since I've changed. +% +Never be afraid to tell the world who you are. + -- Anonymous +% +Never use "etc." -- it makes people think there is more where there is not or that there is not space to list it all, etc. +% +Never volunteer for anything. + -- Lackland +% +New members are urgently needed in the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Yourself. Apply within. +% +Nietzsche is pietzsche, but Schiller is killer, and Goethe is moethe. +% +No matter how cynical you get, it's impossible to keep up. +% +No matter how much you do you never do enough. +% +No small art is it to sleep: it is necessary for that purpose to keep awake all day. + -- Nietzsche +% +Non-Determinism is not meant to be reasonable. + -- M.J. O'Donnell +% +Non-sequiturs make me eat lampshades. +% +Nostalgia is living life in the past lane. +% +Nostalgia isn't what it used to be. +% +Nothing can be done in one trip. + -- Snider +% +Nothing cures insomnia like the realization that it's time to get up. +% +Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know. + -- Michel de Montaigne +% +Nothing is so often irretrievably missed as a daily opportunity. + -- Ebner-Eschenbach +% +Nothing lasts forever... where do I find nothing? +% +NOTICE: + +-- THE ELEVATORS WILL BE OUT OF ORDER TODAY -- + +(The nearest working elevator is in the building across the street.) +% +Once I finally figured out all of life's answers, they changed the questions. +% +Operator, please trace this call and tell me where I am. +% +Our houseplants have a good sense of humous. +% +Over the years, I've developed my sense of deja vu so acutely that now I can remember things that *have* happened before. +% +Paranoid Club meeting this Friday. Now, just try to find out where! +% +Please remain calm, it's no use both of us being hysterical at the same time. +% +Predestination was doomed from the start. +% +Prediction is very difficult, especially of the future. + -- Niels Bohr +% +Progress might have been all right once, but it's gone on too long. + -- Ogden Nash +% +% +Punning is the worst vice, and there's no vice versa. +% +Pyros of the world... IGNITE !!! +% +Quick!! Act as if nothing has happened! +% +Reality -- what a concept! + -- Robin Williams +% +Remember that there is an outside world to see and enjoy. + -- Hans Liepmann +% +Remember, drive defensively! And of course, the best defense is a good offense! +% +Resisting temptation is easier when you think you'll probably get another chance later on. +% +Ring around the collar. +% +Rubber bands have snappy endings! +% +Safety Third. +% +Sailors in ships, sail on! Even while we died, others rode out the storm. +% +Santa's elves are just a bunch of subordinate Clauses. +% +Save the Whales -- Harpoon a Honda. +% +Save the whales! Collect the whole set! +% +See, these two penguins walked into a bar, which was really stupid, 'cause the second one should have seen it. +% +She has an alarm clock and a phone that don't ring -- they applaud. +% +"Sheriff, we gotta catch Black Bart." +"Oh, yeah? What's he look like?" +"Well, he's wearin' a paper hat, a paper shirt, paper pants and paper boots." +"What's he wanted for?" +"Rustling." +% +Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves. + -- Thomas Carlyle +% +Solipsists of the World... you are already united. + -- Kayvan Sylvan +% +Some changes are so slow, you don't notice them. Others are so fast, they don't notice you. +% +Someday we'll look back on this moment and plow into a parked car. + -- Evan Davis +% +Sooner or later you will pay for your sins. +(Those who have already paid may disregard this cookie). +% +Stamp out philately. +% +Standing on head makes smile of frown, but rest of face also upside down. +% +Stealing a rhinoceros should not be attempted lightly. +% +Take it easy, we're in a hurry. +% +The beauty of a pun is in the "Oy!" of the beholder. +% +The cart has no place where a fifth wheel could be used. + -- Herbert von Fritzlar +% +The day after tomorrow is the third day of the rest of your life. +% +The difference between this place and yogurt is that yogurt has a live culture. +% +The eagle may soar, but the weasel never gets sucked into a jet engine. +% +The fact that it works is immaterial. + -- L. Ogborn +% +The future isn't what it used to be. (It never was.) +% +The Martian Canals were clearly the Martian's last ditch effort! +% +The one good thing about repeating your mistakes is that you know when to cringe. +% +The past always looks better than it was. It's only pleasant because it isn't here. + -- Finley Peter Dunne (Mr. Dooley) +% +The pollution's at that awkward stage. Too thick to navigate and too thin to cultivate. + -- Doug Sneyd +% +The problem with any unwritten law is that you don't know where to go to erase it. + -- Glaser and Way +% +The sky is blue so we know where to stop mowing. + -- Judge Harold T. Stone +% +The whole world is a scab. The point is to pick it constructively. + -- Peter Beard +% +The world really isn't any worse. It's just that the news coverage is so much better. +% +There are no rules for March. March is spring, sort of, usually, March means maybe, but don't bet on it. +% +There are three things I always forget. Names, faces -- the third I can't remember. + -- Italo Svevo +% +There are two kinds of pedestrians... the quick and the dead. + -- Lord Thomas Rober Dewar +% +There has been an alarming increase in the number of things you know nothing about. +% +There's no real need to do housework -- after four years it doesn't get any worse. +% +Think honk if you're a telepath. +% +This is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday. And now you know why. +% +This sentence contradicts itself -- no actually it doesn't. + -- Douglas Hofstadter +% +To generalize is to be an idiot. + -- William Blake +% +"To vacillate or not to vacillate, that is the question ... or is it?" +% +Well, we'll really have a party, but we've gotta post a guard outside. + -- Eddie Cochran, "Come On Everybody" +% +What causes the mysterious death of everyone? +% +What color is a chameleon on a mirror? +% +"What did you do when the ship sank?" +"I grabbed a cake of soap and washed myself ashore." +% +What does "it" mean in the sentence "What time is it?"? +% +"What's the use of a good quotation if you can't change it?" + -- The Doctor +% +When a cow laughs, does milk come out of its nose? +% +When a fly lands on the ceiling, does it do a half roll or a half loop? +% +When things go well, expect something to explode, erode, collapse or just disappear. +% +Which is worse: ignorance or apathy? Who knows? Who cares? +% +Who dat who say "who dat" when I say "who dat"? + -- Hattie McDaniel +% +Why does a ship carry cargo and a truck carry shipments? +% +Why isn't there a special name for the tops of your feet? + -- Lily Tomlin diff --git a/data/etc/fortunes/News b/data/etc/fortunes/News new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..b25a78f7d6 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/etc/fortunes/News @@ -0,0 +1,171 @@ +A help wanted add for a photo journalist asked the rhetorical question: + +If you found yourself in a situation where you could either save a drowning man, or you could take a Pulitzer prize winning photograph of him drowning, what shutter speed and setting would you use? + -- Paul Harvey +% +A Hen Brooding Kittens + A friend informs us that he saw at the Novato ranch, Marin county, a few days since, a hen actually brooding and otherwise caring for three kittens! The gentleman upon whose premises this strange event is transpiring says the hen adopted the kittens when they were but a few days old, and that she has devoted them her undivided care for several weeks past. The young felines are now of respectable size, but they nevertheless follow the hen at +her cluckings, and are regularly brooded at night beneath her wings. + -- Sacramento Daily Union, July 2, 1861 +% + A journalist, thrilled over his dinner, asked the chef for the recipe. Retorted the chef, "Sorry, we have the same policy as you journalists, we never reveal our sauce." +% +A Mexican newspaper reports that bored Royal Air Force pilots stationed on the Falkland Islands have devised what they consider a marvelous new game. Noting that the local penguins are fascinated by airplanes, the pilots search out a beach where the birds are gathered and fly slowly along it at the water's edge. Perhaps ten thousand penguins turn their heads in unison watching the planes go by, and when the pilots turn around and fly back, the birds turn their heads in the opposite direction, like spectators at a slow-motion tennis match. Then, the paper reports "The pilots fly out to sea and directly to the penguin colony and overfly it. Heads go up, up, up, and ten thousand penguins fall over gently onto their backs. + -- Audobon Society Magazine +% +A New Way of Taking Pills + A physician one night in Wisconsin being disturbed by a burglar, and having no ball or shot for his pistol, noiselessly loaded the weapon with small, hard pills, and gave the intruder a "prescription" which he thinks will go far towards curing the rascal of a very bad ailment. + -- Nevada Morning Transcript, January 30, 1861 +% +A newspaper is a circulating library with high blood pressure. + -- Arthure "Bugs" Baer +% +A prominent broadcaster, on a big-game safari in Africa, was taken to a watering hole where the life of the jungle could be observed. As he looked down from his tree platform and described the scene into his tape recorder, he saw two gnus grazing peacefully. So preoccupied were they that they failed to observe the approach of a pride of lions led by two magnificent specimens, obviously the leaders. The lions charged, killed the gnus, and dragged them into the bushes where their feasting could not be seen. A little while later the two kings of the jungle emerged and the radioman recorded on his tape: "Well, that's the end of the gnus and here, once again, are the head lions." +% +"A raccoon tangled with a 23,000 volt line today. The results blacked out 1400 homes and, of course, one raccoon." + -- Steel City News +% +A young girl once committed suicide because her mother refused her a new bonnet. Coroner's verdict: "Death from excessive spunk." + -- Sacramento Daily Union, September 13, 1860 +% +Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper. + -- Thomas Jefferson +% +After two or three weeks of this madness, you begin to feel As One with the man who said, "No news is good news." In twenty-eight papers, only the rarest kind of luck will turn up more than two or three articles of any interest... but even then the interest items are usually buried deep around paragraph 16 on the jump (or "Cont. on ...") page... + +The Post will have a story about Muskie making a speech in Iowa. The Star will say the same thing, and the Journal will say nothing at all. But the Times might have enough room on the jump page to include a line or so that says something like: "When he finished his speech, Muskie burst into tears and seized his campaign manager by the side of the neck. They grappled briefly, but the struggle was kicked apart by an oriental woman who seemed to be in control." + +Now that's good journalism. Totally objective; very active and straight to the point. + -- Hunter S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing '72" +% +All newspaper editorial writers ever do is come down from the hills after the battle is over and shoot the wounded. +% +An editor is one who separates the wheat from the chaff and prints the chaff. + -- Adlai Stevenson +% +"... And remember: if you don't like the news, go out and make some of your own." + -- "Scoop" Nisker, KFOG radio reporter Preposterous Words +% +And that's the way it is... + -- Walter Cronkite +% +Earth Destroyed by Solar Flare -- film clips at eleven. +% +Every journalist has a novel in him, which is an excellent place for it. +% +Everything you read in newspapers is absolutely true, except for that rare story of which you happen to have first-hand knowledge. + -- Erwin Knoll +% +FLASH! +Intelligence of mankind decreasing. +Details at ... uh, when the little hand is on the .... +% +... Had this been an actual emergency, we would have fled in terror, and you would not have been informed. +% +I only know what I read in the papers. + -- Will Rogers +% +I read the newspaper avidly. It is my one form of continuous fiction. + -- Aneurin Bevan +% +I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens who, reading newspapers, live and die in the belief that they have known something of what has been passing in their time. + -- H. Truman +% +If I were to walk on water, the press would say I'm only doing it because I can't swim. + -- Bob Stanfield +% +If you lose your temper at a newspaper columnist, he'll get rich, or famous or both. +% +In a medium in which a News Piece takes a minute and an "In-Depth" Piece takes two minutes, the Simple will drive out the Complex. + -- Frank Mankiewicz +% +Isn't it conceivable to you that an intelligent person could harbor +two opposing ideas in his mind? + -- Adlai Stevenson, to reporters +% +Its failings notwithstanding, there is much to be said in favor of journalism in that by giving us the opinion of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +Journalism is literature in a hurry. + -- Matthew Arnold +% +Journalism will kill you, but it will keep you alive while you're at it. +% +Most rock journalism is people who can't write interviewing people who can't talk for people who can't read. + -- Frank Zappa +% +My father was a God-fearing man, but he never missed a copy of the New York Times, either. + -- E.B. White +% +Never offend people with style when you can offend them with substance. + -- Sam Brown, "The Washington Post", January 26, 1977 +% + *** NEWSFLASH *** + +Russian tanks steamrolling through New Jersey!!!! Details at eleven! +% +"No self-respecting fish would want to be wrapped in that kind of paper." + -- Mike Royko on the Chicago Sun-Times after it was taken over by Rupert Murdoch +% +Of what you see in books, believe 75%. Of newspapers, believe 50%. And of TV news, believe 25% -- make that 5% if the anchorman wears a blazer. +% + Once Again From the Top + +Correction notice in the Miami Herald: "Last Sunday, The Herald erroneously reported that original Dolphin Johnny Holmes had been an insurance salesman in Raleigh, North Carolina, that he had won the New York lottery in 1982 and lost the money in a land swindle, that he had been charged with vehicular homicide, but acquitted because his mother said she drove the car, and that he stated that the funniest thing he ever saw was Flipper spouting water on George Wilson. Each of these items was erroneous material published inadvertently. He was not an insurance salesman in Raleigh, did not win the lottery, neither he nor his mother was charged or involved in any way with vehicular homicide, and he made no comment about Flipper or George Wilson. The Herald regrets the errors." + -- "The Progressive", March, 1987 +% +One of the signs of Napoleon's greatness is the fact that he once had a publisher shot. + -- Siegfried Unseld +% +People who are funny and smart and return phone calls get much better press than people who are just funny and smart. + -- Howard Simons, "The Washington Post" +% +Photographing a volcano is just about the most miserable thing you can do. + -- Robert B. Goodman + [Who has clearly never tried to use a PDP-10. Ed.] +% + Reporters like Bill Greider from the Washington Post and Him Naughton of the New York Times, for instance, had to file long, detailed, +and relatively complex stories every day -- while my own deadlines fell every two weeks -- but neither of them ever seemed in a hurry about +getting their work done, and from time to time they would try to console me about the terrible pressure I always seemed to be laboring under. + Any $100-an-hour psychiatrist could probably explain this problem to me, in thirteen or fourteen sessions, but I don't have time for that. +No doubt it has something to do with a deep-seated personality defect, or maybe a kink in whatever blood vessel leads into the pineal gland... On +the other hand, it might be something as simple & basically perverse as whatever instinct it is that causes a jackrabbit to wait until the last +possible second to dart across the road in front of a speeding car. + -- Hunter S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail" +% +The advertisement is the most truthful part of a newspaper. + -- Thomas Jefferson +% +The American Dental Association announced today that most plaque tends to form on teeth around 4:00 PM in the afternoon. + +Film at 11:00. +% +The most important service rendered by the press is that of educating people to approach printed matter with distrust. +% +"The New York Times is read by the people who run the country. The Washington Post is read by the people who think they run the country. The +National Enquirer is read by the people who think Elvis is alive and running the country ..." + -- Robert J Woodhead +% +The only qualities for real success in journalism are ratlike cunning, a plausible manner and a little literary ability. The capacity to steal +other people's ideas and phrases ... is also invaluable. + -- Nicolas Tomalin, "Stop the Press, I Want to Get On" +% +The world really isn't any worse. It's just that the news coverage is so much better. +% +"Then you admit confirming not denying you ever said that?" +"NO! ... I mean Yes! WHAT?" +"I'll put `maybe.'" + -- Bloom County +% +This is a test of the emergency broadcast system. Had there been an actual emergency, then you would no longer be here. +% +This is a test of the Emergency Broadcast System. If this had been an actual emergency, do you really think we'd stick around to tell you? +% +This life is a test. It is only a test. Had this been an actual life, you would have received further instructions as to what to do and where to go. +% +Warning: Listening to WXRT on April Fools' Day is not recommended for those who are slightly disoriented the first few hours after waking up. + -- Chicago Reader 4/22/83 +% +You know the great thing about TV? If something important happens anywhere at all in the world, no matter what time of the day or night, you can always change the channel. + -- Jim Ignatowski +% diff --git a/data/etc/fortunes/OS Fortunes b/data/etc/fortunes/OS Fortunes new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..731ab1ba0e --- /dev/null +++ b/data/etc/fortunes/OS Fortunes @@ -0,0 +1,140 @@ +% +"It is a relief and a joy when I see a regiment of hackers digging in to hold the line, and I realize, this city may survive--for now." + + -- Richard Stallman (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates) +% +"If a machine couldn't run a free operating system, we got rid of it." + + -- Richard Stallman (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates) +% +"The straightforward and easy path was to join the proprietary software world, signing nondisclosure agreements and promising not to help my fellow hacker....I could have made money this way, and perhaps had fun programming (if I closed my eyes to how I was treating other people). But I knew that when my career was over, I would look back on years of building walls to divide people, and feel I had made the world ugly." + + -- Richard Stallman (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates) +% +"But the most reliable indication of the future of Open Source is its past: in just a few years, we have gone from nothing to a robust body of software that solves many different problems and is reaching the million-user count. There's no reason for us to slow down now." + + -- Bruce Perens, on the future of Open Source software. (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates) +% +"The reason for the success of this somewhat communist-sounding strategy, while the failure of communism itself is visible around the world, is that the economics of information are fundamentaly different from those of other products." + + -- Bruce Perens, on Open Source software. (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates) +% +"It is easy to sympathize with the MIS staffs around the world, I mean who hasn't lost work due to Windows or a Microsoft application crashing?" + + -- Chris DiBona, happy he's been using Linux and can avoid such things, from the introduction. (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates) +% +"So I decided that if the architecture is fundamentally sane enough, say it follows some basic rules like it supported paging , then I would be able to say, yes, Linux fundamentally supports that model." + + -- Linus Torvalds on Portability (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates) +% +"I'm not saying that they were knowingly dishonest, perhaps they were simply stupid. " + + -- Linus Torvalds, commenting on those who really thought Microkernels were wise. (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates) +% +"The idea of abstracting away the one thing that must be blindingly fast, the kernel, is inherently counter productive." + + -- Linus Torvalds on Microkernels (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly & Associates) +% +"So right now the only vendor that does such a stupid thing is Microsoft." + + -- Linus Torvalds on bad file system interface design. (Open Sources , 1999 O'Reilly and Associates.) +% +"Eric also holds a black belt in Tae Kwon Do and shoots pistols for relaxation, His favorite gun is the classic 1911-pattern .45 semiautomatic" + + -- Chris DiBona on neo-renassaince Homo Heileinias Eric S. Raymond. (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates) +% +"The world is beating a path to our door" + + -- Bruce Perens, (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates) +% +"If you want an application to be portable, you don't necessarily create an abstraction layer like a microkernel so much as you program intelligently." + + -- Linus Torvalds on Microkernels (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates) +% +"Calling EMACS an editor is like calling the Earth a hunk of dirt." + + -- Chris DiBona on Dirt (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates) +% +"I am not convinced that they can write solid stable software. Proprietary software is already hobbled by it's secretive cathedral nature, but Microsoft seems to have a corner on incompetent programming as well." + + -- Chris DiBona from the introduction. (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates) +% +"The funny thing is if you actually read those papers, you find that, while the researchers were applying thier optomizational tricks on a microkernel, in fact those same tricks could be applied to traditional kernels to accelerate thier execution." + + -- Linus Torvalds on Microkernels (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates) +% +"Computers and autmation have become so ingrained and essentaial to day-to-day business that a sensible business should not rely on a single vendor to provide essential services........Thus is is always in a customers' interests to demand that the software they deploy be based on non-proprietary platforms." + + -- Brian Behlendorf on OSS (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates) +% +"Nature abhors a Vacuum" + + -- Brian Behlendorf on OSS (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates) +% +"While not obviously a business-friendly licensem there are certain aspects of the GNU license which are attractive, believe it or not, for commercial purposes." + + -- Brian Behlendorf on OSS (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates) +% +"The open-source approach is not a magic bullet for every type of software development project." + + -- Brian Behlendorf on OSS (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates) +% +"For something that does not exist, the Internet Engineering Task Force has has quite an impact." + + -- Scott Bradner (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates) +% +"The basic publication series for te IETF is the RFC series. RPF once stood for 'Request for Comments,' but since documents published as RFCs have generally gone through an extensive review process before publication, RFC is now best known understood to mean 'RFC' " + + -- Scott Bradner (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates) +% +"The IETF motto is 'rouch consesus and running code'" + + -- Scott Bradner (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates) +% +"Open Standars, Open Documents, and Open Source" + + -- Scott Bradner (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates) +% +"So here's a picture of reality: (picture of circle with lots of sqiggles in it) As we all know, reality is a mess." + + -- Larry Wall (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates) +% +"However, complexity is not always the enemy." + + -- Larry Wall (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates) +% +"Suppose I want to take over the world. Simplicity says I should just take over the world by myself." + + -- Larry Wall (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates) +% +"People get annoyed when you try to debug them." + + -- Larry Wall (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates) +% +"Computers may be stupid, but they're always obedient. Well, almost always." + + -- Larry Wall (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates) +% +"You know, how is The Force like duct tape? Answer: it has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together." + + -- Larry Wall (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates) +% +"Of course, in Perl culture, almost nothis is prohibited. My feeling is that the rest of the world already has plenty of perfectly good prohibitions, so why invent more?" + + -- Larry Wall (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates) +% +"There are a billion people in China. And I want them to be able to pass notes to each other written in Perl. I want them to be able to write poetry in Perl. + +That is my vision of the Future. My chosen perspective." + + -- Larry Wall (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates) +% +"In a way they were right the basics of operating systems, and by extension the Linux kernel, were well understood by the early 70s; anything after that has been to some degree an exercise in self-gratification." + + -- Linus Torvalds (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates) +% +"The move was on to 'Free the Lizard'" + + -- Jim Hamerly and Tom Paquin (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates) +% + diff --git a/data/etc/fortunes/One Liners b/data/etc/fortunes/One Liners new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..a9252a09ef --- /dev/null +++ b/data/etc/fortunes/One Liners @@ -0,0 +1,1496 @@ +!07/11 PDP a ni deppart m'I !pleH +% +!07/11 PDP a ni deppart m'I !pleH +% +10.0 times 0.1 is hardly ever 1.0. +% +$3,000,000 +% +A bird in the bush usually has a friend in there with him. +% +A bird in the hand is worth what it will bring. +% +A bird in the hand makes it awfully hard to blow your nose. +% +A celebrity is a person who is known for his well-knownness. +% +A child of five could understand this! Fetch me a child of five. +% +A closed mouth gathers no foot. +% +A conclusion is simply the place where someone got tired of thinking. +% +A day for firm decisions!!!!! Or is it? +% +A day without sunshine is like night. +% +A diva who specializes in risqu'e arias is an off-coloratura soprano ... +% +A fool must now and then be right by chance. +% +A journey of a thousand miles begins with a cash advance. +% +A lack of leadership is no substitute for inaction. +% +A lack of leadership is no substitute for inaction. +% +A lack of leadership is no substitute for inaction. +% +A long memory is the most subversive idea in America. +% +A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small package. +% +A mathematician is a machine for converting coffee into theorems. +% +A nuclear war can ruin your whole day. +% +A penny saved is ridiculous. +% +A person is just about as big as the things that make them angry. +% +A professor is one who talks in someone else's sleep. +% +"A radioactive cat has eighteen half-lives." +% +A tautology is a thing which is tautological. +% +A truly wise man never plays leapfrog with a unicorn. +% +Abandon the search for Truth; settle for a good fantasy. +% +Absence makes the heart go wander. +% +Acid -- better living through chemistry. +% +Acid absorbs 47 times it's weight in excess Reality. +% +Actors will happen even in the best-regulated families. +% +After I run your program, let's make love like crazed weasels, OK? +% +Ah say, son, you're about as sharp as a bowlin' ball. +% +Air is water with holes in it +% +Alex Haley was adopted! +% +All extremists should be taken out and shot. +% +All I ask is a chance to prove that money can't make me happy. +% +All power corrupts, but we need electricity. +% +All programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors. +% +All syllogisms have three parts, therefore this is not a syllogism. +% +All things are possible, except skiing thru a revolving door. +% +All true wisdom is found on T-shirts. +% +Although the moon is smaller than the earth, it is farther away. +% +Always remember that you are unique. Just like everyone else. +% +Am I ranting? I hope so. My ranting gets raves. +% +"Amnesia used to be my favorite word, but then I forgot it." +% +An apple every eight hours will keep three doctors away. +% +An artist should be fit for the best society and keep out of it. +% +An effective way to deal with predators is to taste terrible. +% +An elephant is a mouse with an operating system. +% +An exotic journey in downtown Newark is in your future. +% +An idea is not responsible for the people who believe in it. +% +"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of purge." +% +... and furthermore ... I don't like your trousers. +% +And on the seventh day, He exited from append mode. +% +Ankh if you love Isis. +% +Another good night not to sleep in a eucalyptus tree. +% +Anybody can win, unless there happens to be a second entry. +% +Anybody with money to burn will easily find someone to tend the fire. +% +Anything free is worth what you pay for it. +% +Anything is good and useful if it's made of chocolate. +% +Anything is good if it's made of chocolate. +% +Anything that is good and useful is made of chocolate. +% +Anything worth doing is worth overdoing +% +"Apathy is not the problem, it's the solution" +% +Are you a turtle? +% +Are you a turtle? +% +Artistic ventures highlighted. Rob a museum. +% +As long as the answer is right, who cares if the question is wrong? +% +As of next week, passwords will be entered in Morse code. +% +As Zeus said to Narcissus, "Watch yourself." +% +ASHes to ASHes, DOS to DOS. +% +Ask not for whom the tolls. +% +"At least they're EXPERIENCED incompetents" +% +Avoid reality at all costs. +% +Ban the bomb. Save the world for conventional warfare. +% +Bank error in your favor. Collect $200. +% +"BASIC is the Computer Science equivalent of `Scientific Creationism'." +% +BE ALERT!!!! (The world needs more lerts ...) +% +Be braver -- you can't cross a chasm in two small jumps. +% +Be different: conform. +% +Be security conscious -- National defense is at stake. +% +"Being disintegrated makes me ve-ry an-gry!" +% +Bell Labs Unix -- Reach out and grep someone. +% +Best of all is never to have been born. Second best is to die soon. +% +Better dead than mellow. +% +Beware of computerized fortune-tellers! +% +Beware of low-flying butterflies. +% +Bizarreness is the essence of the exotic +% +... bleakness ... desolation ... plastic forks ... +% +Blessed are the young for they shall inherit the national debt. +% +BLISS is ignorance +% +Blood flows down one leg and up the other. +% +Blood is thicker than water, and much tastier. +% +BOO! We changed Coke again! BLEAH! BLEAH! +% +Brain fried -- Core dumped +% +Bureaucrats cut red tape -- lengthwise. +% +"But I don't like Spam!!!!" +% +Caution: breathing may be hazardous to your health. +% +CChheecckk yyoouurr dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh.. +% +Celebrate Hannibal Day this year. Take an elephant to lunch. +% +Chicago law prohibits eating in a place that is on fire. +% +Chicken Little only has to be right once. +% +Chicken Little was right. +% +Cleanliness is next to impossible. +% +Cleveland still lives. God *must* be dead. +% +"Cleveland? Yes, I spent a week there one day." +% +Cloning is the sincerest form of flattery. +% +COBOL programs are an exercise in Artificial Inelegance. +% +Cocaine -- the thinking man's Dristan. +% +Computer programmers do it byte by byte +% +Computers are not intelligent. They only think they are. +% +Condense soup, not books! +% +Conscience is what hurts when everything else feels so good. +% +Darth Vader sleeps with a Teddywookie. +% +Day of inquiry. You will be subpoenaed. +% +Death is God's way of telling you not to be such a wise guy. +% +Death is Nature's way of recycling human beings. +% +"Death is nature's way of saying `Howdy'". +% +Death is nature's way of telling you to slow down +% +Death to all fanatics! +% +"Deliver yesterday, code today, think tomorrow." +% +Did I say 2? I lied. +% +Different all twisty a of in maze are you, passages little. +% +Diplomacy is the art of saying "nice doggy" until you can find a rock. +% +Disc space -- the final frontier! +% +Disco is to music what Etch-A-Sketch is to art. +% +Do infants have as much fun in infancy as adults do in adultery? +% +Do molecular biologists wear designer genes? +% +Do not believe in miracles -- rely on them. +% +Do not drink coffee in early a.m. It will keep you awake until noon. +% +Do not sleep in a eucalyptus tree tonight. +% +Do something unusual today. Pay a bill. +% +Do what comes naturally now. Seethe and fume and throw a tantrum. +% +Do you have lysdexia? +% +Does the name Pavlov ring a bell? +% +Don't abandon hope: your Tom Mix decoder ring arrives tomorrow. +% +Don't believe everything you hear or anything you say. +% +Don't cook tonight -- starve a rat today! +% +Don't feed the bats tonight. +% +Don't get even -- get odd! +% +Don't go surfing in South Dakota for a while. +% +Don't hate yourself in the morning -- sleep till noon. +% +Don't hit a man when he's down -- kick him; it's easier. +% +Don't kiss an elephant on the lips today. +% +Don't knock President Fillmore. He kept us out of Vietnam. +% +Don't let your mind wander -- it's too little to be let out alone. +% +Don't look back, the lemmings are gaining on you. +% +Don't take life too seriously -- you'll never get out of it alive. +% +Don't tell any big lies today. Small ones can be just as effective. +% +Don't you feel more like you do now than you did when you came in? +% +Down with categorical imperative! +% +"Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing." +% +Drink Canada Dry! You might not succeed, but it *is* fun trying. +% +Drive defensively. Buy a tank. +% +E Pluribus Unix +% +Earn cash in your spare time -- blackmail your friends +% +/earth is 98% full ... please delete anyone you can. +% +Earth is a beta site. +% + Eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow they may make it illegal. +% +"Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you may work." +% +Electrical Engineers do it with less resistance. +% +Elevators smell different to midgets +% +Entropy isn't what it used to be. +% +Equal bytes for women. +% +Error in operator: add beer +% +Every absurdity has a champion who will defend it. +% +Every creature has within him the wild, uncontrollable urge to punt. +% +Every journalist has a novel in him, which is an excellent place for it. +% +"Every man has his price. Mine is $3.95." +% +Every program is a part of some other program, and rarely fits. +% +Every solution breeds new problems. +% +"Every time I think I know where it's at, they move it." +% +Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die. +% +Everyone talks about apathy, but no one *does* anything about it. +% +Everything should be built top-down, except the first time. +% +Everything you know is wrong! +% +Excellent day for drinking heavily. Spike office water cooler. +% +Excellent day for putting Slinkies on an escalator. +% +Excellent day to have a rotten day. +% +Excellent time to become a missing person. +% +Excessive login or logout messages are a sure sign of senility. +% +Expect the worst, it's the least you can do. +% +Experience is what you get when you were expecting something else. +% +Experience varies directly with equipment ruined. +% +f u cn rd ths, itn tyg h myxbl cd. +% +f u cn rd ths, u cn gt a gd jb n cmptr prgrmmng. +% +Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable. +% +Familiarity breeds attempt +% +Famous last words: +% +Fats Loves Madelyn +% +Feel disillusioned? I've got some great new illusions ... +% +Fine day to throw a party. Throw him as far as you can. +% +Fine day to work off excess energy. Steal something heavy. +% +For 20 dollars, I'll give you a good fortune next time ... +% +For a good time, call 555-9483 +% +"For an adequate time call 555-3321" +% +For large values of one, one equals two, for small values of two. +% +For some reason, this fortune reminds everyone of Marvin Zelkowitz. +% +For your penance, say five Hail Marys and one loud BLAH! +% +Forms follow function, and often obliterate it. +% +fortune: cpu time/usefulness ratio too high -- core dumped. +% +Future looks spotty. You will spill soup in late evening. +% +Garbage In -- Gospel Out. +% +"Gee, Toto, I don't think we are in Kansas anymore." +% +George Orwell was an optimist. +% +Get forgiveness now -- tomorrow you may no longer feel guilty. +% +Get Revenge! Live long enough to be a problem for your children! +% +Give your child mental blocks for Christmas. +% +Go 'way! You're bothering me! +% +Go climb a gravity well! +% +//GO.SYSIN DD *, DOODAH, DOODAH +% +God is a comic playing to an audience that's afraid to laugh +% +God is a polythiest +% +God is not dead! He's alive and autographing bibles at Cody's +% +God is real, unless declared integer. +% +God isn't dead, he just couldn't find a parking place. +% +God made machine language; all the rest is the work of man. +% +God made the world in six days, and was arrested on the seventh. +% +God must love the Common Man; He made so many of them. +% +Good day for a change of scene. Repaper the bedroom wall. +% +Good day for overcoming obstacles. Try a steeplechase. +% +Good day to avoid cops. Crawl to school. +% +Good day to let down old friends who need help. +% +Good leaders being scarce, following yourself is allowed. +% +Good news is just life's way of keeping you off balance. +% +Good news. Ten weeks from Friday will be a pretty good day. +% +Graduate life -- it's not just a job, it's an indenture. +% +Graduate life: It's not just a job. It's an indenture. +% +Gravity is a myth, the Earth sucks. +% +Great minds run in great circles. +% +Hacking's just another word for nothing left to kludge. +% +Half Moon tonight. (At least it's better than no Moon at all.) +% +Hard work may not kill you, but why take chances? +% +Have an adequate day. +% +Have an adequate day. +% +Have you reconsidered a computer career? +% +"He flung himself on his horse and rode madly off in all directions" +% +He looked at me as if I was a side dish he hadn't ordered. +% +He who Laughs, Lasts. +% +"He's just a politician trying to save both his faces ..." +% +"He's the kind of man for the times that need the kind of man he is ..." +% +Health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die. +% +"Heisenberg may have slept here" +% +Help a swallow land at Capistrano. +% +Help fight continental drift. +% +Help me, I'm a prisoner in a Fortune cookie file! +% +Help stamp out and abolish redundancy. +% +Help! I'm trapped in a PDP 11/70! +% +Hindsight is an exact science. +% +Hire the morally handicapped. +% +"His super power is to turn into a scotch terrier." +% +History repeats itself. That's one thing wrong with history. +% +"Honesty is the best policy, but insanity is a better defense" +% +Honk if you hate bumper stickers that say "Honk if ..." +% +Honk if you love peace and quiet. +% +Horses are forbidden to eat fire hydrants in Marshalltown, Iowa. +% +How can you be in two places at once when you're not anywhere at all? +% +How come only your friends step on your new white sneakers? +% +How come wrong numbers are never busy? +% +"How do I love thee? My accumulator overflows." +% +How wonderful opera would be if there were no singers. +% +How wonderful opera would be if there were no singers. +% +Human beings were created by water to transport it uphill. +% +Hummingbirds never remember the words to songs. +% +I am more bored than you could ever possibly be. Go back to work. +% +"I am the mother of all things, and all things should wear a sweater." +% +I brake for chezlogs! +% +I can read your mind, and you should be ashamed of yourself. +% +"I can resist anything but temptation." +% +"I didn't know it was impossible when I did it." +% +"I don't think so," said Ren'e Descartes. Just then, he vanished. +% +I doubt, therefore I might be. +% +"I found out why my car was humming. It had forgotten the words." +% +"I had to hit him -- he was starting to make sense." +% +"I haven't lost my mind -- it's backed up on tape somewhere." +% +"I haven't lost my mind; I know exactly where I left it." +% +I just forgot my whole philosophy of life!!! +% +I know it all. I just can't remember it all at once. +% +"I like work ... I can sit and watch it for hours." +% +"I like your game but we have to change the rules." +% +I must have slipped a disk -- my pack hurts +% +"I never met a piece of chocolate I didn't like." +% +I predict that today will be remembered until tomorrow! +% +"I refuse to have a battle of wits with an unarmed person." +% +I used to be an agnostic, but now I'm not so sure. +% +"I used to get high on life but lately I've built up a resistance." +% +"I used to think I was indecisive, but now I'm not so sure." +% +"I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous." +% +"I'd love to go out with you, but I have to floss my cat." +% +"I'd love to go out with you, but I'm having all my plants neutered." +% +"I'd love to go out with you, but I'm taking punk totem pole carving." +% +"I'd love to go out with you, but it's my parakeet's bowling night." +% +"I'd love to go out with you, but my favorite commercial is on TV." +% +"I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy." +% +I'm a Lisp variable -- bind me! +% +I'm defending her honor, which is more than she ever did. +% +"I'm defending her honor, which is more than she ever did." +% +I'm rated PG-34!! +% +I've enjoyed just about as much of this as I can stand. +% +I've given up reading books; I find it takes my mind off myself. +% +"I've seen better heads on half a pint of beer." +% +If a President doesn't do it to his wife, he'll do it to his country. +% +If anything can go wrong, it will. +% +If at first you don't succeed, redefine success. +% +"If dolphins are so smart, why did Flipper work for television?" +% +If entropy is increasing, where is it coming from? +% +If everything is coming your way then you're in the wrong lane. +% +If God had intended Man to Smoke, He would have set him on Fire. +% +If God had intended Man to Walk, He would have given him Feet. +% +If God is dead, who will save the Queen? +% +If God is perfect, why did He create discontinuous functions? +% +If I don't see you in the future, I'll see you in the pasture. +% +If ignorance is bliss, why aren't there more happy people? +% +If it's Tuesday, this must be someone else's fortune. +% +If life is a stage, I want some better lighting. +% +If money can't buy happiness, I guess you'll just have to rent it. +% +If only I could be respected without having to be respectable. +% +If there are epigrams, there must be meta-epigrams. +% +If this fortune didn't exist, somebody would have invented it. +% +If this is timesharing, give me my share right now. +% +If time heals all wounds, how come the belly button stays the same? +% +"If value corrupts then absolute value corrupts absolutely" +% +"If we were meant to fly, we wouldn't keep losing our luggage." +% +If you can lead it to water and force it to drink, it isn't a horse. +% +If you can read this, you're too close. +% +If you can survive death, you can probably survive anything. +% +If you can't learn to do it well, learn to enjoy doing it badly. +% +If you didn't get caught, did you really do it? +% +If you don't care where you are, then you ain't lost. +% +If you had any brains, you'd be dangerous. +% +If you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some. +% +"If you have to hate, hate gently" +% +If you keep anything long enough, you can throw it away. +% +If you stand on your head, you will get footprints in your hair. +% +If you wish to live wisely, ignore sayings -- including this one. +% +If you're happy, you're successful. +% +If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate. +% +If you're right 90% of the time, why quibble about the remaining 3%? +% +In Boston, it is illegal to hold frog-jumping contests in nightclubs. +% +In Devon, Connecticut, it is unlawful to walk backwards after sunset. +% +"In short, _N is Richardian if, and only if, _N is not Richardian." +% +In specifications, Murphy's Law supersedes Ohm's. +% +Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, but who cares? +% +Individualists unite! +% +Insanity is hereditary. You get it from your kids. +% +Intolerance is the last defense of the insecure. +% +Is your job running? You'd better go catch it! +% +It has just been discovered that research causes cancer in rats. +% +It is better to kiss an avocado than to get in a fight with an aardvark +% +It is easier to get forgiveness than permission. +% +It is illegal to say "Oh, Boy" in Jonesboro, Georgia. +% +It looks like blind screaming hedonism won out. +% +It was a book to kill time for those who liked it better dead. +% +It's a good thing we don't get all the government we pay for. +% +It's always darkest just before it gets pitch black. +% +It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them. +% +It's illegal in Wilbur, Washington, to ride an ugly horse. +% +"It's men like him that give the Y chromosome a bad name." +% +It's raisins that make Post Raisin Bran so raisiny ... +% +It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles. +% +It's the thought, if any, that counts! +% +Joe's sister puts spaghetti in her shoes! +% +Join the march to save individuality! +% +Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they AREN'T after you. +% +Keep America beautiful. Swallow your beer cans. +% +Keep emotionally active. Cater to your favorite neurosis. +% +Keep grandma off the streets -- legalize bingo. +% +"Kirk to Enterprise -- beam down yeoman Rand and a six-pack." +% +Kiss me twice. I'm schizophrenic. +% +Kiss your keyboard goodbye! +% +Klein bottle for rent -- inquire within. +% +Klein bottle for sale ... inquire within. +% +Know thyself. If you need help, call the C.I.A. +% +Laetrile is the pits +% +Last yeer I kudn't spel Engineer. Now I are won. +% +Laugh at your problems; everybody else does. +% +Learned men are the cisterns of knowledge, not the fountainheads. +% +Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse. +% +Let He who taketh the Plunge Remember to return it by Tuesday. +% +Life is a whim of several billion cells to be you for a while. +% +Life is a yo-yo, and mankind ties knots in the string. +% +"Life is like a buffet; it's not good but there's plenty of it." +% +Life is like a simile. +% +Life is like an analogy +% +Life would be so much easier if we could just look at the source code. +% +Line Printer paper is strongest at the perforations. +% +Logic is a little bird, sitting in a tree; that smells *awful*. +% +Look out! Behind you! +% +Loose bits sink chips. +% +Lost interest? It's so bad I've lost apathy. +% +Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea. +% +Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea. +% +Love is sentimental measles. +% +Love means having to say you're sorry every five minutes. +% +LSD melts in your mind, not in your hand. +% +Lysistrata had a good idea. +% +Make it myself? But I'm a physical organic chemist! +% +"Matrimony isn't a word, it's a sentence." +% +May a Misguided Platypus lay its Eggs in your Jockey Shorts +% +May Euell Gibbons eat your only copy of the manual! +% +May the Fleas of a Thousand Camels infest one of your Erogenous Zones. +% +Measure with a micrometer. Mark with chalk. Cut with an axe. +% +MESSAGE ACKNOWLEDGED -- The Pershing II missiles have been launched. +% +Message will arrive in the mail. Destroy, before the FBI sees it. +% +Mickey Mouse wears a Spiro Agnew watch. +% +Minnie Mouse is a slow maze learner. +% +Misery loves company, but company does not reciprocate. +% +Mistakes are often the stepping stones to utter failure. +% +Modern man is the missing link between apes and human beings. +% +Monday is an awful way to spend one seventh of your life. +% +Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons. +% +Money is the root of all evil, and man needs roots +% +Money is the root of all wealth. +% +Mother is the invention of necessity. +% +Mother told me to be good, but she's been wrong before. +% +My opinions may have changed, but not the fact that I am right. +% +"My weight is perfect for my height -- which varies" +% +Necessity is a mother. +% +Never be led astray onto the path of virtue. +% +Never call a man a fool. Borrow from him. +% +Never call a man a fool; borrow from him. +% +Never commit yourself! Let someone else commit you. +% +Never count your chickens before they rip your lips off +% +Never hit a man with glasses. Hit him with a baseball bat. +% +Never let your schooling interfere with your education. +% +Never put off till tomorrow what you can avoid all together. +% +Never settle with words what you can accomplish with a flame thrower. +% +Never tell a lie unless it is absolutely convenient. +% +"Never underestimate the power of a small tactical nuclear weapon." +% +New crypt. See /usr/news/crypt. +% +New systems generate new problems. +% +New York is real. The rest is done with mirrors. +% +Newton's Fourth Law: Every action has an equal and opposite satisfaction. +% +Nihilism should commence with oneself. +% +No man is an island, but some of us are long peninsulas. +% +"No one gets too old to learn a new way of being stupid." +% +No problem is so formidable that you can't just walk away from it. +% +No problem is so large it can't be fit in somewhere. +% +NOBODY EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION +% +Nobody said computers were going to be polite. +% +Non-sequiturs make me eat lampshades. +% +Nondeterminism means never having to say you are wrong. +% +"Nondeterminism means never having to say you are wrong." +% +Nostalgia isn't what it used to be. +% +Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing. +% +Nothing cures insomnia like the realization that it's time to get up. +% +Now and then an innocent person is sent to the legislature. +% +(null cookie; hope that's ok) +% +Of course there's no reason for it, it's just our policy. +% +Oh Dad! We're ALL Devo! +% +Oh, well, I guess this is just going to be one of those lifetimes. +% +Oh, wow! Look at the moon! +% +OK, so you're a Ph.D. Just don't touch anything. +% +Old programmers never die. They just branch to a new address. +% +Old soldiers never die. Young ones do. +% +One can't proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means. +% +One man's theology is another man's belly laugh. +% +One nice thing about egotists: they don't talk about other people. +% +"One planet is all you get." +% +One seldom sees a monument to a committee. +% +One way to stop a runaway horse is to bet on him. +% +Only adults have difficulty with childproof caps. +% +Only God can make random selections. +% +Only through hard work and perseverance can one truly suffer. +% +Optimization hinders evolution. +% +Optimization hinders evolution. +% +Overdrawn? But I still have checks left! +% +Overflow on /dev/null, please empty the bit bucket. +% +Overload -- core meltdown sequence initiated. +% +panic: can't find / +% +panic: kernel trap (ignored) +% +Parallel lines never meet, unless you bend one or both of them. +% +Paranoia is simply an optimistic outlook on life. +% +Paranoid schizophrenics outnumber their enemies at least two to one. +% +Pardon this fortune. Database under reconstruction. +% +Parts that positively cannot be assembled in improper order will be. +% +Paul Revere was a tattle-tale +% +People usually get what's coming to them ... unless it's been mailed. +% +People will buy anything that's one to a customer. +% +Perfect day for scrubbing the floor and other exciting things. +% +Personifiers Unite! You have nothing to lose but Mr. Dignity! +% +Philogyny recapitulates erogeny; erogeny recapitulates philogyny. +% +Pick another fortune cookie. +% +Please ignore previous fortune. +% +Please take note: +% +Please, won't somebody tell me what diddie-wa-diddie means? +% +Polymer physicists are into chains. +% +Pound for pound, the amoeba is the most vicious animal on earth. +% +Power corrupts. And atomic power corrupts atomically. +% +Predestination was doomed from the start. +% +Pretend to spank me -- I'm a pseudo-masochist! +% +Pro is to con as progress is to Congress. +% +Pure drivel tends to drive ordinary drivel off of the TV screen. +% +Pure drivel tends to drive ordinary drivel off the TV screen. +% +Pushing 40 is exercise enough. +% +Put no trust in cryptic comments. +% +Quick!! Act as if nothing has happened! +% +Quick, sing me the BUDAPEST NATIONAL ANTHEM!! +% +"Qvid me anxivs svm?" +% +Radioactive cats have 18 half-lives. +% +Real Programmers think better when playing Adventure or Rogue. +% +Real Users hate Real Programmers. +% +Real Users know your home telephone number. +% +Real Users never use the Help key. +% +Reality is a cop-out for people who can't handle drugs. +% +Reality is an obstacle to hallucination. +% +Reality is for people who lack imagination. +% +Reality is for those who can't face Science Fiction. +% +"Really ?? What a coincidence, I'm shallow too!!" +% +Remember, even if you win the rat race -- you're still a rat. +% +Remember, UNIX spelled backwards is XINU. +% +Sauron is alive in Argentina! +% +Save energy: be apathetic. +% +Save the Whales -- Harpoon a Honda. +% +Save the whales. Collect the whole set. +% +Schizophrenia beats being alone. +% +Science is what happens when preconception meets verification. +% +Screw up your courage! You've screwed up everything else. +% +Security check: **INTRUDER ALERT!** +% +"See - the thing is - I'm an absolutist. I mean, kind of ... in a way ..." +% +Serenity through viciousness. +% +Serving coffee on aircraft causes turbulence. +% +She's genuinely bogus. +% +Show respect for age. Drink good Scotch for a change. +% +Slowly and surely the unix crept up on the Nintendo user ... +% +Some don't prefer the pursuit of happiness to the happiness of pursuit. +% +Some people live life in the fast lane. You're in oncoming traffic. +% +Someone will try to honk your nose today. +% +Somewhere, just out of sight, the unicorns are gathering. +% +Sorry, no fortune this time. +% +Sorry. I forget what I was going to say. +% +Speak softly and carry a +6 two-handed sword. +% +"Speed is subsittute fo accurancy." +% +Spelling is a lossed art. +% +Spend extra time on hobby. Get plenty of rolling papers. +% +Stay away from flying saucers today. +% +Stay away from hurricanes for a while. +% +"Stealing a rhinoceros should not be attempted lightly." +% +Stop searching. Happiness is right next to you. +% +Stupidity got us into this mess -- why can't it get us out? +% +Succumb to natural tendencies. Be hateful and boring. +% +Support bacteria -- it's the only culture some people have! +% +Support wildlife -- vote for an orgy. +% +Support your local police force -- steal!! +% +Support your local Search and Rescue unit -- get lost. +% +Sure he's sharp as a razor ... he's a two-dimensional pinhead! +% +Surprise due today. Also the rent. +% +Surprise your boss. Get to work on time. +% +Take everything in stride. Trample anyone who gets in your way. +% +Take it easy, we're in a hurry. +% +Teamwork is essential -- it allows you to blame someone else. +% +Test-tube babies shouldn't throw stones. +% +Texas law forbids anyone to have a pair of pliers in his possession. +% +"That must be wonderful! I don't understand it at all." +% +That secret you've been guarding, isn't. +% +The 80's -- when you can't tell hairstyles from chemotherapy. +% +The average income of the modern teenager is about 2 a.m. +% +The best defense against logic is ignorance. +% +The best thing about growing older is that it takes such a long time. +% +The bigger the theory the better. +% +"The bland leadeth the bland and they both shall fall into the kitsch." +% +The bogosity meter just pegged. +% +The chief cause of problems is solutions. +% +"The Computer made me do it." +% +The cost of living hasn't affected its popularity. +% +The day after tomorrow is the third day of the rest of your life. +% +The debate rages on: Is PL/I Bachtrian or Dromedary? +% +The devil finds work for idle circuits to do. +% +The earth is like a tiny grain of sand, only much, much heavier. +% +The gentlemen looked one another over with microscopic carelessness. +% +The Killer Ducks are coming!!! +% +The light at the end of the tunnel may be an oncoming dragon. +% +The meek shall inherit the earth -- they are too weak to refuse. +% +The moon is a planet just like the Earth, only it is even deader. +% +The moon may be smaller than Earth, but it's further away. +% +The more things change, the more they stay insane. +% +The moving cursor writes, and having written, blinks on. +% +... the MYSTERIANS are in here with my CORDUROY SOAP DISH!! +% +The older a man gets, the farther he had to walk to school as a boy. +% +The only really decent thing to do behind a person's back is pat it. +% +The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard. +% +The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much. +% +The revolution will not be televised. +% +"The Schizophrenic: An Unauthorized Autobiography" +% +The sheep that fly over your head are soon to land. +% +"The sooner you fall behind, the more time you'll have to catch up!" +% +The soul would have no rainbow had the eyes no tears. +% +The state law of Pennsylvania prohibits singing in the bathtub. +% +The sum of the Universe is zero. +% +The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all your time. +% +The wages of sin are high but you get your money's worth. +% +The world is coming to an end ... SAVE YOUR BUFFERS!!! +% +The world is coming to an end! Repent and return those library books! +% +The world is coming to an end. Please log off. +% +There *is* intelligent life on Earth, but I leave for Texas on Monday. +% +There are no games on this system. +% +There is a green, multi-legged creature crawling on your shoulder. +% +There is no such thing as fortune. Try again. +% +There is no time like the pleasant. +% +There's an old proverb that says just about whatever you want it to. +% +There's no future in time travel +% +There's no room in the drug world for amateurs. +% +They also surf who only stand on waves. +% +"They told me I was gullible ... and I believed them!" +% +They're only trying to make me LOOK paranoid! +% +Things are more like they used to be than they are now. +% +Things will be bright in P.M. A cop will shine a light in your face. +% +Think big. Pollute the Mississippi. +% +Think honk if you're a telepath. +% +Think of it! With VLSI we can pack 100 ENIACs in 1 sq. cm.! +% +Think twice before speaking, but don't say "think think click click". +% +This Fortue Examined By INSPECTOR NO. 2-14 +% +This fortune intentionally not included. +% +This fortune is false. +% +This fortune is inoperative. Please try another. +% +This is an unauthorized cybernetic announcement. +% +This is National Non-Dairy Creamer Week. +% +This is the *LAST* time I take travel suggestions from Ray Bradbury! +% +This is your fortune. +% +This login session: $13.99, but for you $11.88 +% +Those who can't write, write manuals. +% +Those who can, do. Those who can't, simulate. +% +Those who in quarrels interpose, must often wipe a bloody nose. +% +Time flies like an arrow, but fruit flies like a banana. +% +To be intoxicated is to feel sophisticated but not be able to say it. +% +To err is human, to forgive is Not Company Policy. +% +"To err is human, to forgive, beyond the scope of the Operating System" +% +To err is human, to moo bovine. +% +To iterate is human, to recurse, divine. +% +To the best of my recollection, Senator, I can't recall. +% +"To vacillate or not to vacillate, that is the question ... or is it?" +% +Today is a good day to bribe a high-ranking public official. +% +Today is National Existential Ennui Awareness Day. +% +Today is the first day of the rest of the mess +% +Today is the first day of the rest of your lossage. +% +Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday +% +Tomorrow will be canceled due to lack of interest. +% +Tonight's the night: Sleep in a eucalyptus tree. +% +Travel important today; Internal Revenue men arrive tomorrow. +% +Truth will be out this morning. (Which may really mess things up.) +% +Try to get all of your posthumous medals in advance. +% +Trying to establish voice contact ... please *yell* into keyboard. +% +Two percent of zero is almost nothing. +% +Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do. +% +UFO's are for real: the Air Force doesn't exist. +% +unix soit qui mal y pense +% +Usage: fortune -P [] -a [xsz] [Q: [file]] [rKe9] -v6[+] dataspec ... inputdir +% +Veni, Vidi, Visa. +% +Very few profundities can be expressed in less than 80 characters. +% +"Virtual" means never knowing where your next byte is coming from. +% +Virtue is its own punishment. +% +Vitamin C deficiency is apauling +% +VMS is like a nightmare about RXS-11M. +% +Vote anarchist +% +VYARZERZOMANIMORORSEZASSEZANSERAREORSES? +% +Walk softly and carry a megawatt laser. +% +War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ketchup is a vegetable. +% +Warp 7 -- It's a law we can live with. +% +Waste not, get your budget cut next year. +% +Wasting time is an important part of living. +% +We can defeat gravity. The problem is the paperwork involved. +% +We can predict everything, except the future. +% +"We don't care. We don't have to. We're the Phone Company." +% +"We'll cross out that bridge when we come back to it later." +% +What color is a chameleon on a mirror? +% +What does "it" mean in the sentence "What time is it?"? +% +What does it mean if there is no fortune for you? +% +What garlic is to food, insanity is to art. +% +What garlic is to salad, insanity is to art. +% +What I tell you three times is true. +% +What I want is all of the power and none of the responsibility. +% +What is worth doing is worth the trouble of asking somebody to do. +% +What the large print giveth, the small print taketh away. +% +What the world *really* needs is a good Automatic Bicycle Sharpener. +% +What this country needs is a dime that will buy a good five-cent bagel. +% +What this country needs is a good five cent ANYTHING! +% +What this country needs is a good five cent microcomputer. +% +What this country needs is a good five cent nickel. +% +What this country needs is a good five dollar plasma weapon. +% +What this world needs is a good five-dollar plasma weapon. +% +What you don't know can hurt you, only you won't know it. +% +Whatever became of eternal truth? +% +When all other means of communication fail, try words. +% +When in doubt, do what the President does -- guess. +% +"When you are in it up to your ears, keep your mouth shut." +% +When you don't know what you are doing, do it neatly. +% +When you're not looking at it, this fortune is written in FORTRAN. +% +Where there's a will, there's an Inheritance Tax. +% +Which is worse: ignorance or apathy? Who knows? Who cares? +% +While having never invented a sin, I'm trying to perfect several. +% +Who messed with my anti-paranoia shot? +% +Who needs friends when you can sit alone in your room and drink? +% +Who's on first? +% +Whom computers would destroy, they must first drive mad. +% +Whom the gods wish to destroy they first call promising. +% +Why can't you be a non-conformist like everyone else? +% +Why do we have two eyes? To watch 3-D movies with. +% +Why is the alphabet in that order? Is it because of that song? +% +Without ice cream life and fame are meaningless. +% +Xerox does it again and again and again and ... +% +Xerox never comes up with anything original. +% +"Yeah, but you're taking the universe out of context." +% +Yes, but every time I try to see things your way, I get a headache. +% +Yes, but which self do you want to be? +% +You are a very redundant person, that's what kind of person you are. +% +You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely. +% +You are the only person to ever get this message. +% +You buttered your bread, now lie in it. +% +You can make it illegal, but you can't make it unpopular. +% +You can only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough. +% +You can tune a piano, but you can't tuna fish. +% +You can't carve your way to success without cutting remarks. +% +You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair. +% +"You can't make a program without broken egos." +% +You cannot achieve the impossible without attempting the absurd. +% +You cannot kill time without injuring eternity. +% +You cannot propel yourself forward by patting yourself on the back. +% +You do not have mail. +% +You have a tendency to feel you are superior to most computers. +% +You have junk mail. +% +You know you've landed gear-up when it takes full power to taxi. +% +You look like a million dollars. All green and wrinkled. +% +You may be recognized soon. Hide. +% +You might have mail +% +You possess a mind not merely twisted, but actually sprained. +% +You think Oedipus had a problem -- Adam was Eve's mother. +% +You too can wear a nose mitten. +% +You will be a winner today. Pick a fight with a four-year-old. +% +You will be surprised by a loud noise. +% +You will be Told about it Tomorrow. Go Home and Prepare Thyself. +% +You will feel hungry again in another hour. +% +You will think of something funnier than this to add to the fortunes. +% +"You'll never be the man your mother was!" +% +You're at the end of the road again. +% +You're being followed. Cut out the hanky-panky for a few days. +% +You're not my type. For that matter, you're not even my species!!! +% +You've been leading a dog's life. Stay off the furniture. +% +Your fault: core dumped +% +Your life would be very empty if you had nothing to regret. +% +Your lucky color has faded. +% +Your lucky number has been disconnected. +% +Your lucky number is 3552664958674928. Watch for it everywhere. +% +Your true value depends entirely on what you are compared with. +% +YOW!! Everybody out of the GENETIC POOL!" +% diff --git a/data/etc/fortunes/Pets b/data/etc/fortunes/Pets new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..677fa055bb --- /dev/null +++ b/data/etc/fortunes/Pets @@ -0,0 +1,139 @@ +A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of. + -- Ogden Nash +% + A little dog goes into a saloon in the Wild West, and beckons to the bartender. "Hey, bartender, gimme a whiskey." + The bartender ignores him. + "Hey bartender, gimme a whiskey!" + Still ignored. + "HEY BARMAN!! GIMME A WHISKEY!!" + The bartender takes out his six-shooter and shoots the dog in the leg, and the dog runs out the saloon, howling in pain. + Three years later, the wee dog appears again, wearing boots, jeans, chaps, a Stetson, gun belt, and guns. He ambles slowly into the saloon, goes up to the bar, leans over it, and says to the bartender, "I'm here t'git the man that shot muh paw." +% +About the only thing on a farm that has an easy time is the dog. +% +All intelligent species own cats. +% +Any member introducing a dog into the Society's premises shall be liable to a fine of one pound. Any animal leading a blind person shall be deemed to be a cat. + -- Rule 46, Oxford Union Society, London +% +Anyone who considers protocol unimportant has never dealt with a cat. + -- R. Heinlein +% +"Anything else you wish to draw to my attention, Mr. Holmes ?" +"The curious incident of the stable dog in the nighttime." +"But the dog did nothing in the nighttime." +"That was the curious incident." + -- A. Conan Doyle, "Silver Blaze" +% +Auribus teneo lupum. + [I hold a wolf by the ears.] + [Boy, it *sounds* good. But what does it *mean*?] +% +Breeding rabbits is a hare raising experience. +% +Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a function. + -- Garrison Keillor +% +Cats are smarter than dogs. You can't make eight cats pull a sled through the snow. +% +Cats, no less liquid than their shadows, offer no angles to the wind. +% +Chihuahuas drive me crazy. I can't stand anything that shivers when it's warm. +% +"Contrary to popular belief, penguins are not the salvation of modern technology. Neither do they throw parties for the urban proletariat." +% +Did you ever walk into a room and forget why you walked in? I think that's how dogs spend their lives. + -- Sue Murphy +% +Does the name Pavlov ring a bell? +% +Dogs just don't seem to be able to tell the difference between important people and the rest of us. +% +Everyone *knows* cats are on a higher level of existence. These silly humans are just to big-headed to admit their inferiority. + Just think what a nicer world this would be if it were controlled by cats. + You wouldn't see cats having waste disposal problems. + They're neat. + They keep reasonable hours. You *never* see a cat up before noon. + They know how to relax. Ever heard of a cat with an ulcer? + What are the chances of a cat starting a nuclear war? Pretty neglible. It's not that they can't, they just know that there are much better things to do with ones time. Like lie in the sun and sleep. Or go exploring the world. +% +For a man to truly understand rejection, he must first be ignored by a cat. +% +Hi! You have reached 555-0129. None of us are here to answer the phone and the cat doesn't have opposing thumbs, so his messages are illegible. Please leave your name and message after the beep... +% +I loathe people who keep dogs. They are cowards who haven't got the guts to bite people themselves. + -- August Strindberg +% +I love dogs, but I hate Chihuahuas. A Chihuahua isn't a dog. It's a rat with a thyroid problem. +% +If a can of Alpo costs 38 cents, would it cost $2.50 in Dog Dollars? +% +If anyone has seen my dog, please contact me at x2883 as soon as possible. We're offering a substantial reward. He's a sable collie, with three legs, blind in his left eye, is missing part of his right ear and the tip of his tail. He's been recently fixed. Answers to "Lucky". +% +If you are a police dog, where's your badge? + -- Question James Thurber used to drive his German Shepherd crazy. +% +"If you don't want your dog to have bad breath, do what I do: Pour a little Lavoris in the toilet." + -- Jay Leno +% +If you have received a letter inviting you to speak at the dedication of a new cat hospital, and you hate cats, your reply, declining the invitation, does not necessarily have to cover the full range of your emotions. You must make it clear that you will not attend, but you do not have to let fly at cats. The writer of the letter asked a civil question; attack cats, then, only if you can do so with good humor, good taste, and in such a way that your answer will be courteous as well as responsive. Since you are out of sympathy with cats, you may quite properly give this as a reason for not appearing at the dedication ceremonies of a cat hospital. But bear in mind that your opinion of cats was not sought, only your services as a speaker. Try to keep things straight. + -- Strunk and White, "The Elements of Style" +% +In the eyes of my dog, I'm a man. + -- Martin Mull +% +It is not a good omen when goldfish commit suicide. +% +It's no use crying over spilt milk -- it only makes it salty for the cat. +% +Lost: gray and white female cat. Answers to electric can opener. +% +Never try to outstubborn a cat. + -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love" +% +No animal should ever jump on the dining room furniture unless absolutely certain he can hold his own in conversation. + -- Fran Lebowitz +% +No one can feel as helpless as the owner of a sick goldfish. +% +PENGUINICITY!! +% +Raising pet electric eels is gaining a lot of current popularity. +% +"Shelter," what a nice name for for a place where you polish your cat. +% +Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested. + -- Francis Bacon + [As anyone who has ever owned a puppy already knows. Ed.] +% +Sometimes when I get up in the morning, I feel very peculiar. I feel like I've just got to bite a cat! I feel like if I don't bite a cat before sundown, I'll go crazy! But then I just take a deep breath and forget about it. That's what is known as real maturity. + -- Snoopy +% +Speaking of purchasing a dog, never buy a watchdog that's on sale. After all, everyone knows a bargain dog never bites! +% +The difference between dogs and cats is that dogs come when they're called. Cats take a message and get back to you. +% +The main problem I have with cats is, they're not dogs. + -- Kevin Cowherd +% +The only time a dog gets complimented is when he doesn't do anything. + -- C. Schulz +% +There are many intelligent species in the universe, and they all own cats. +% +There's no use in having a dog and doing your own barking. +% +To err is human, +To purr feline. + -- Robert Byrne +% +When man calls an animal "vicious", he usually means that it will attempt to defend itself when he tries to kill it. +% +When the fog came in on little cat feet last night, it left these little muddy paw prints on the hood of my car. +% +Who loves me will also love my dog. + -- John Donne +% +With a rubber duck, one's never alone. + -- "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" +% diff --git a/data/etc/fortunes/Platitudes b/data/etc/fortunes/Platitudes new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..82e17094fb --- /dev/null +++ b/data/etc/fortunes/Platitudes @@ -0,0 +1,1256 @@ +(1) Everything depends. +(2) Nothing is always. +(3) Everything is sometimes. +% +42 +% +A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that balances are correct. + -- Princess Irulan, "Manual of Maud'Dib" +% +A bird in the bush usually has a friend in there with him. +% +A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. + -- Cervantes +% +A bird in the hand is worth what it will bring. +% +A bird in the hand makes it awfully hard to blow your nose. +% + A boy spent years collecting postage stamps. The girl next door bought an album too, and started her own collection. "Dad, she buys everything I've bought, and it's taken all the fun out of it for me. I'm quitting." Don't, son, remember, 'Imitation is the sincerest form of philately.'" +% +A certain amount of opposition is a help, not a hindrance. Kites rise against the wind, not with it. +% +A chicken is an egg's way of producing more eggs. +% +A chronic disposition to inquiry deprives domestic felines of vital qualities. +% +A clever prophet makes sure of the event first. +% +A closed mouth gathers no foot. +% +A couch is as good as a chair. +% +A day without orange juice is like a day without orange juice. +% +A day without sunshine is like a day without Anita Bryant. +% +A day without sunshine is like a day without orange juice. +% +A day without sunshine is like night. +% +A dead man cannot bite. + -- Gnaeus Pompeius (Pompey) +% +A farmer is a man outstanding in his field. +% + A farmer with extremely prolific hens posted the following sign. "Free Chickens. Our Coop Runneth Over." +% + A father gave his teen-age daughter an untrained pedigreed pup for her birthday. An hour later, when wandered through the house, he found her looking at a puddle in the center of the kitchen. "My pup," she murmured sadly, "runneth over." +% +A fool and his money are soon popular. +% +A fool and your money are soon partners. +% +A fool must now and then be right by chance. +% +A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. + -- Ralph Waldo Emerson +% +A friend in need is a pest indeed. +% +A full belly makes a dull brain. + -- Ben Franklin + + [and the local candy machine man. Ed] +% + A girl spent a couple hours on the phone talking to her two best friends, Maureen Jones, and Maureen Brown. When asked by her father why she had been on the phone so long, she responded "I heard a funny story today and I've been telling it to the Maureens." +% +A gleekzorp without a tornpee is like a quop without a fertsneet (sort of). +% +A good memory does not equal pale ink. +% +A good name lost is seldom regained. When character is gone, all is gone, and one of the richest jewels of life is lost forever. + -- J. Hawes +% +A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow. + -- Patton +% +A good reputation is more valuable than money. + -- Publilius Syrus +% +A good scapegoat is hard to find. A guilty conscience is the mother of invention. + -- Carolyn Wells +% +A handful of friends is worth more than a wagon of gold. +% +A handful of patience is worth more than a bushel of brains. +% +A hermit is a deserter from the army of humanity. +% +A homeowner's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a weekend for? +% + A horse breeder has his young colts bottle-fed after they're three days old. He heard that a foal and his mummy are soon parted. +% +A hundred thousand lemmings can't be wrong! +% +A journey of a thousand miles begins with a cash advance. +% +A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step. + -- Lao Tsu +% +A journey of a thousand miles starts under one's feet. + -- Lao Tsu +% +A king's castle is his home. +% +A lie in time saves nine. +% +A lie is an abomination unto the Lord and a very present help in time of trouble. + -- Adlai Stevenson +% +A likely impossibility is always preferable to an unconvincing possibility. + -- Aristotle +% +A little experience often upsets a lot of theory. +% +A little inaccuracy saves a world of explanation. + -- C.E. Ayres +% +A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation. + -- H.H. Munro, "Saki" +% +A lost ounce of gold may be found, a lost moment of time never. +% +A man gazing at the stars is proverbially at the mercy of the puddles in the road. + -- Alexander Smith +% +A man who carries a cat by its tail learns something he can learn in no other way. +% +A man with one watch knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never quite sure. +% +A man's best friend is his dogma. +% +A man's house is his castle. + -- Sir Edward Coke +% +A man's house is his hassle. +% +A mind is a wonderful thing to waste. +% +A mushroom cloud has no silver lining. +% +A penny saved has not been spent. +% +A penny saved is ridiculous. +% +A pipe gives a wise man time to think and a fool something to stick in his mouth. +% +A place for everything and everything in its place. + -- Isabella Mary Beeton, "The Book of Household Management" + +[Quoted in "VMS Internals and Data Structures", V4.4, when referring to memory management system services.] +% +A platitude is simply a truth repeated till people get tired of hearing it. + -- Stanley Baldwin +% +A plethora of individuals with expertise in culinary techniques contaminate the potable concoction produced by steeping certain edible nutriments. +% +A plucked goose doesn't lay golden eggs. +% +A pound of salt will not sweeten a single cup of tea. +% +"A radioactive cat has eighteen half-lives." +% +A rolling stone gathers momentum. +% +A rolling stone gathers no moss. + -- Publilius Syrus +% +A shortcut is the longest distance between two points. +% +A sinking ship gathers no moss. + -- Donald Kaul +% +A Smith & Wesson beats four aces. +% +A snake lurks in the grass. + -- Publius Vergilius Maro (Virgil) +% +A soft answer turneth away wrath; but grievous words stir up anger. + -- Proverbs 15:1 +% +A soft drink turneth away company. +% +A song in time is worth a dime. +% +A stitch in time saves nine. +% +A violent man will die a violent death. + -- Lao Tsu +% +A watched clock never boils. +% +A wise man can see more from a mountain top than a fool can from the bottom of a well. +% +A wise man can see more from the bottom of a well than a fool can from a mountain top. +% +A wise person makes his own decisions, a weak one obeys public opinion. + -- Chinese proverb +% +A witty saying proves nothing, but saying something pointless gets people's attention. +% +A witty saying proves nothing. + -- Voltaire +% +A word to the wise is enough. + -- Miguel de Cervantes +% +Above all else -- sky. +% +Above all things, reverence yourself. +% +Absence makes the heart forget. +% +Absence makes the heart go wander. +% +Absence makes the heart grow fonder -- of somebody else. +% +Absence makes the heart grow fonder. + -- Sextus Aurelius +% +Absence makes the heart grow frantic. +% +Absolutum obsoletum. (If it works, it's out of date.) + -- Stafford Beer +% +Ad astra per aspera. + [To the stars by aspiration.] +% +Advice from an old carpenter: measure twice, saw once. +% +After the game the king and the pawn go in the same box. + -- Italian proverb +% +Age and treachery will always overcome youth and skill. +% +Age before beauty; and pearls before swine. + -- Dorothy Parker +% +Aim for the moon. If you miss, you may hit a star. + -- W. Clement Stone +% +Ain't no right way to do a wrong thing. + -- The Mad Dogtender +% +Alas, I am dying beyond my means. + -- Oscar Wilde [as he sipped champagne on his deathbed] +% +Alimony is the high cost of leaving. +% +All a man needs out of life is a place to sit 'n' spit in the fire. +% +All articles that coruscate with resplendence are not truly auriferous. +% +-- All articles that coruscate with resplendence are not truly auriferous. +-- When there are visible vapors having the prevenience in ignited carbonaceous materials, there is conflagration. +-- Sorting on the part of mendicants must be interdicted. +-- A plethora of individuals wither expertise in culinary techniques vitiated the potable concoction produced by steeping certain coupestibles. +-- Eleemosynary deeds have their initial incidence intramurally. +-- Male cadavers are incapable of yielding testimony. +-- Individuals who make their abode in vitreous edifices would be well advised to refrain from catapulting projectiles. +% +All I kin say is when you finds yo'self wanderin' in a peach orchard, ya don't go lookin' for rutabagas. + -- Kingfish +% +All is fear in love and war. +% +All is well that ends well. + -- John Heywood +% +All that glitters has a high refractive index. +% +All that glitters is not gold; all that wander are not lost. +% +All things are possible, except for skiing through a revolving door. +% +All things being equal, you are bound to lose. +% +All true wisdom is found on T-shirts. +% +All's well that ends. +% +An aphorism is never exactly true; it is either a half-truth or one-and-a-half truths. + -- Karl Kraus +% +An apple a day makes 365 apples a year. +% +An apple every eight hours will keep three doctors away. +% +An idle mind is worth two in the bush. +% +An ounce of clear truth is worth a pound of obfuscation. +% +An ounce of hypocrisy is worth a pound of ambition. + -- Michael Korda +% +An ounce of mother is worth a ton of priest. + -- Spanish proverb +% +"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of purge." +% +And tomorrow will be like today, only more so. + -- Isaiah 56:12, New Standard Version +% +Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit. + -- Proverbs, 26:5 +% +Any great truth can -- and eventually will -- be expressed as a cliche -- a cliche is a sure and certain way to dilute an idea. For instance, my grandmother used to say, "The black cat is always the last one off the fence." I have no idea what she meant, but at one time, it was undoubtedly true. + -- Solomon Short +% +Any philosophy that can be put "in a nutshell" belongs there. + -- Sydney J. Harris +% +Any road followed to its end leads precisely nowhere. Climb the mountain just a little to test it's a mountain. +From the top of the mountain, you cannot see the mountain. + -- Bene Gesserit proverb, "Dune" +% +Anything is possible on paper. + -- Ron McAfee +% +Anything is possible, unless it's not. +% +Anything that is worth doing has been done frequently. Things hitherto undone should be given, I suspect, a wide berth. + -- Max Beerbohm, "Mainly on the Air" +% +Anything worth doing is worth overdoing. +% +As well look for a needle in a bottle of hay. + -- Miguel de Cervantes +% +Ask not for whom the Bell tolls, and you will pay only the station-to-station rate. + -- Howard Kandel +% +Ask not for whom the telephone bell tolls... if thou art in the bathtub, it tolls for thee. +% +Avoid cliches like the plague. They're a dime a dozen. +% +Be both a speaker of words and a doer of deeds. + -- Homer +% +Be sure to evaluate the bird-hand/bush ratio. +% +Beggars should be no choosers. + -- John Heywood +% +Better dead than mellow. +% +Better hope you get what you want before you stop wanting it. +% +Better late than never. + -- Titus Livius (Livy) +% +Better living a beggar than buried an emperor. +% +Better to be nouveau than never to have been riche at all. +% +Better to light one candle than to curse the darkness. + -- motto of the Christopher Society +% +Better tried by twelve than carried by six. + -- Jeff Cooper +% +Beware of friends who are false and deceitful. +% +Beware of geeks bearing graft. +% +Call on God, but row away from the rocks. + -- Indian proverb +% +Charity begins at home. + -- Publius Terentius Afer (Terence) +% +Cheap things are of no value, valuable things are not cheap. +% +Cleanliness becomes more important when godliness is unlikely. + -- P.J. O'Rourke +% +Cleanliness is next to impossible. +% +Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum -- +"I think that I think, therefore I think that I am." + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +"Cogito ergo I'm right and you're wrong." + -- Blair Houghton +% +Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought her back. +% +Desist from enumerating your fowl prior to their emergence from the shell. +% +Do not count your chickens before they are hatched. + -- Aesop +% +Do unto others before they undo you. +% +Do, or do not; there is no try. +% +Doing gets it done. +% +Don't get even -- get odd! +% +Don't get mad, get even. + -- Joseph P. Kennedy + +Don't get even, get jewelry. + -- Anonymous +% +Don't get mad, get interest. +% +Don't put off for tomorrow what you can do today because if you enjoy it today, you can do it again tomorrow. +% +Eschew obfuscation. +% +Every path has its puddle. +% +Every silver lining has a cloud around it. +% +Every solution breeds new problems. +% +Expedience is the best teacher. +% +Experience is a good teacher, but she sends in terrific bills. + -- Minna Antrim, "Naked Truth and Veiled Allusions" +% +Familiarity breeds attempt. +% +Flattery will get you everywhere. +% +Flee at once, all is discovered. +% +For fools rush in where angels fear to tread. + -- Alexander Pope +% +Forgive and forget. + -- Cervantes +% +Fortune and love befriend the bold. + -- Ovid +% +Fortune favors the lucky. +% +Fortune finishes the great quotations, #12 + + Those who can, do. Those who can't, write the instructions. +% +Fortune finishes the great quotations, #3 + + Birds of a feather flock to a newly washed car. +% +Fortune finishes the great quotations, #9 + + A word to the wise is often enough to start an argument. +% +Freedom from incrustation of grime is contiguous to rectitude. +% +Genius is pain. + -- John Lennon +% +Given sufficient time, what you put off doing today will get done by itself. +% +God gave man two ears and one tongue so that we listen twice as much as we speak. + -- Arab proverb +% +Happiness adds and multiplies as we divide it with others. +% +Happiness is the greatest good. +% +Haste makes waste. + -- John Heywood +% +Have a nice day! +% +Have a nice diurnal anomaly. +% +Have an adequate day. +% +He that bringeth a present, findeth the door open. + -- Scottish proverb. +% +He who fears the unknown may one day flee from his own backside. + -- Sinbad +% +He who fights and runs away lives to fight another day. +% +He who foresees calamities suffers them twice over. +% +He who has a shady past knows that nice guys finish last. +% +He who has imagination without learning has wings but no feet. +% +He who has the courage to laugh is almost as much a master of the world as he who is ready to die. + -- Giacomo Leopardi +% +He who hates vices hates mankind. +% +He who hesitates is last. +% +He who hesitates is sometimes saved. +% +He who laughs has not yet heard the bad news. + -- Bertolt Brecht +% +He who laughs last -- missed the punch line. +% +He who laughs last didn't get the joke. +% +He who laughs last hasn't been told the terrible truth. +% +He who laughs last is probably your boss. +% +He who laughs last usually had to have joke explained. +% +He who laughs, lasts. +% +He who lives without folly is less wise than he believes. +% +He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man. + -- Dr. Johnson +% +Honesty is the best policy, but insanity is a better defense. +% +Honesty's the best policy. + -- Miguel de Cervantes +% +How sharper than a hound's tooth it is to have a thankless serpent. +% +How you look depends on where you go. +% +I am a man: nothing human is alien to me. + -- Publius Terentius Afer (Terence) +% +I doubt, therefore I might be. +% +I know on which side my bread is buttered. + -- John Heywood +% +I think, therefore I am... I think. +% +I'll turn over a new leaf. + -- Miguel de Cervantes +% +If a fool persists in his folly he shall become wise. + -- William Blake +% +If anything can go wrong, it will. +% +If at first you do succeed, try to hide your astonishment. +% +If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried. +% +If at first you don't succeed, quit; don't be a nut about success. +% +If at first you don't succeed, redefine success. +% +If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. + -- W.E. Hickson +% +If at first you don't succeed, you're doing about average. + -- Leonard Levinson +% +If happiness is in your destiny, you need not be in a hurry. + -- Chinese proverb +% +If I cannot bend Heaven, I shall move Hell. + -- Publius Vergilius Maro (Virgil) +% +If in doubt, mumble. +% +If it ain't broke, don't fix it. +% +If it heals good, say it. +% +If the shoe fits, it's ugly. +% +If the thunder don't get you, then the lightning will. +% +If there is no wind, row. + -- Polish proverb +% +If two wrongs don't make a right, try three. + -- Laurence J. Peter +% +If wishes were horses, then beggars would be thieves. +% +If you wish to be happy for one hour, get drunk. +If you wish to be happy for three days, get married. +If you wish to be happy for a month, kill your pig and eat it. +If you wish to be happy forever, learn to fish. + -- Chinese Proverb +% +If you wish to succeed, consult three old people. +% +If you would keep a secret from an enemy, tell it not to a friend. +% +In charity there is no excess. + -- Francis Bacon +% +In God we trust; all else we walk through. +% +In this world, nothing is certain but death and taxes. + -- Benjamin Franklin +% +Inspiration without perspiration is usually sterile. +% +Integrity has no need for rules. +% +It doesn't matter whether you win or lose -- until you lose. +% +It is a poor judge who cannot award a prize. +% +It is a profitable thing, if one is wise, to seem foolish. + -- Aeschylus +% +It is annoying to be honest to no purpose. + -- Publius Ovidius Naso (Ovid) +% +It is bad luck to be superstitious. + -- Andrew W. Mathis +% +It is better to have loved a short man than never to have loved a tall. +% +It is better to have loved and lost -- much better. +% +It is better to have loved and lost than just to have lost. +% +It is better to wear out than to rust out. +% +It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something. + -- Franklin D. Roosevelt +% +It is sweet to let the mind unbend on occasion. + -- Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace) +% +It is the quality rather than the quantity that matters. + -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca +% +It is when I struggle to be brief that I become obscure. + -- Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace) +% +It is wise to keep in mind that neither success nor failure is ever final. + -- Roger Babson +% +It is your concern when your neighbor's wall is on fire. + -- Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace) +% +It's always darkest just before it gets pitch black. +% +It's always darkest just before the lights go out. + -- Alex Clark +% +It's better to burn out than it is to rust. +% +It's better to burn out than to fade away. +% +It's later than you think. +% +It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you place the blame. +% +It's the thought, if any, that counts! +% +Keep on keepin' on. +% +Keep the phase, baby. +% +Kites rise highest against the wind -- not with it. + -- Winston Churchill +% +Knowledge is power. + -- Francis Bacon +% +Knowledge without common sense is folly. +% +Laugh and the world laughs with you, snore and you sleep alone. +% +Laugh and the world thinks you're an idiot. +% +Laugh at your problems; everybody else does. +% +Laugh when you can; cry when you must. +% +Laugh, and the world ignores you. Crying doesn't help either. +% +Leave no stone unturned. + -- Euripides +% +Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse. +% +Let sleeping dogs lie. + -- Charles Dickens +% +Let your conscience be your guide. + -- Pope +% +Life is one long struggle in the dark. + -- Titus Lucretius Carus +% +"Life is too important to take seriously." + -- Corky Siegel +% +Life is too short to be taken seriously. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +Look before you leap. + -- Samuel Butler +% +Look ere ye leap. + -- John Heywood +% +-- Male cadavers are incapable of yielding testimony. +-- Individuals who make their abode in vitreous edifices would be well advised to refrain from catapulting projectiles. +-- Neophyte's serendipity. +-- Exclusive dedication to necessitious chores without interludes of hedonistic diversion renders John a hebetudinous fellow. +-- A revolving concretion of earthy or mineral matter accumulates no congeries of small, green bryophytic plant. +-- Abstention from any aleatory undertaking precludes a potential escallation of a lucrative nature. +-- Missiles of ligneous or osteal consistency have the potential of fracturing osseous structure, but appellations will eternally remain innocuous. +% +Man is the measure of all things. + -- Protagoras +% +Mankind is poised midway between the gods and the beasts. + -- Plotinus +% +Many are called, few are chosen. Fewer still get to do the choosing. +% +Many are called, few volunteer. +% +Many are cold, but few are frozen. +% +Many hands make light work. + -- John Heywood +% +May you have warm words on a cold evening, a full mooon on a dark night, and a smooth road all the way to your door. +% +May you live in uninteresting times. + -- Chinese proverb +% +Men freely believe that what they wish to desire. + -- Julius Caesar +% +Misery loves company, but company does not reciprocate. +% +Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it. + -- Russell Baker +% +Misfortunes arrive on wings and leave on foot. +% +Mistakes are often the stepping stones to utter failure. +% +Mistrust first impulses; they are always right. +% +Moderation in all things. + -- Publius Terentius Afer [Terence] +% +Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +Mother is the invention of necessity. +% +Mum's the word. + -- Miguel de Cervantes +% +Necessity has no law. + -- St. Augustine +% +Necessity hath no law. + -- Oliver Cromwell +% +Necessity is a mother. +% +-- Neophyte's serendipity. +-- Exclusive dedication to necessitious chores without interludes of hedonistic diversion renders John a hebetudinous fellow. +-- A revolving concretion of earthy or mineral matter accumulates no congeries of small, green bryophytic plant. +-- The person presenting the ultimate cachinnation possesses thereby the optimal cachinnation. +-- Abstention from any aleatory undertaking precludes a potential escallation of a lucrative nature. +-- Missiles of ligneous or osteal consistency have the potential of fracturing osseous structure, but appellations will eternally remain innocuous. +% +Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow. +% +Never look a gift horse in the mouth. + -- Saint Jerome +% +Never promise more than you can perform. + -- Publilius Syrus +% +Never put off till tomorrow what you can avoid all together. +% +Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after. +% +Nice guys don't finish nice. +% +Nice guys finish last, but we get to sleep in. + -- Evan Davis +% +Nice guys finish last. + -- Leo Durocher +% +Nice guys get sick. +% +No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted. + -- Aesop +% +No evil can happen to a good man. + -- Plato +% +No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness. + -- Aristotle +% +No good deed goes unpunished. + -- Clare Booth Luce +% +None love the bearer of bad news. + -- Sophocles +% +Not everything worth doing is worth doing well. +% +Nothing endures but change. + -- Heraclitus +% +Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced -- even a proverb is no proverb to you till your life has illustrated it. + -- John Keats +% +Often things ARE as bad as they seem! +% +Once a word has been allowed to escape, it cannot be recalled. + -- Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace) +% +Once harm has been done, even a fool understands it. + -- Homer +% +One good turn asketh another. + -- John Heywood +% +One good turn deserves another. + -- Gaius Petronius +% +One good turn usually gets most of the blanket. +% +One man's Mede is another man's Persian. + -- George M. Cohan +% +One picture is worth more than ten thousand words. + -- Chinese proverb +% +Oppernockity tunes but once. +% +Out of sight is out of mind. + -- Arthur Clough +% + -- Owen Meredith +% +Patience is the best remedy for every trouble. + -- Titus Maccius Plautus +% +Pauca sed matura. + [Few but excellent.] + -- Gauss +% +Pity the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. + -- Don Marquis +% +Practice yourself what you preach. + -- Titus Maccius Plautus +% +Praise the sea; on shore remain. + -- John Florio +% +Pray to God, but keep rowing to shore. + -- Russian Proverb +% +Prosperity makes friends, adversity tries them. + -- Publilius Syrus +% +Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur. + [Whatever is said in Latin sounds profound.] +% +Remembering is for those who have forgotten. + -- Chinese proverb +% +Removing the straw that broke the camel's back does not necessarily allow the camel to walk again. +% +Rome was not built in one day. + -- John Heywood +% +Rome wasn't burnt in a day. +% +Rotten wood cannot be carved. + -- Confucius, "Analects", Book 5, Ch. 9 +% +-- Scintillate, scintillate, asteroid minikin. +-- Members of an avian species of identical plumage congregate. +-- Surveillance should precede saltation. +-- Pulchritude possesses solely cutaneous profundity. +-- It is fruitless to become lachrymose over precipitately departed lacteal fluid. +-- Freedom from incrustations of grime is contiguous to rectitude. +-- It is fruitless to attempt to indoctrinate a superannuated canine with innovative maneuvers. +-- Eschew the implement of correction and vitiate the scion. +-- The temperature of the aqueous content of an unremittingly galled saucepan does not reach 212 degrees Farenheit. +% +Scintillation is not always identification for an auric substance. +% +Seek simplicity -- and distrust it. + -- Alfred North Whitehead +% +Seize the day, put no trust in the morrow! + -- Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace) +% +Set the cart before the horse. + -- John Heywood +% +Si jeunesse savait, si vieillesse pouvait. + [If youth but knew, if old age but could.] + -- Henri Estienne +% +Sic transit gloria Monday! +% +Sic transit gloria mundi. + [So passes away the glory of this world.] + -- Thomas `a Kempis +% +Sic Transit Gloria Thursdi. +% +Small change can often be found under seat cushions. + -- One of Lazarus Long's most penetrating insights +% +Small is beautiful. + -- Schumacher's Dictum +% +Stop searching forever. Happiness is just next to you. +% +Stop searching forever. Happiness is unattainable. +% +Stop searching. Happiness is right next to you. Now, if they'd only take a bath ... +% +Sweet April showers do spring May flowers. + -- Thomas Tusser +% +The coast was clear. + -- Lope de Vega +% +The course of true anything never does run smooth. + -- Samuel Butler +% +The descent to Hades is the same from every place. + -- Anaxagoras +% +The early worm gets the bird. +% +The early worm gets the late bird. +% +The ends justify the means. + -- after Matthew Prior +% +The greatest love is a mother's, then a dog's, then a sweetheart's. + -- Polish proverb +% +The life which is unexamined is not worth living. + -- Plato +% +The light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an approaching train. +% +The light at the end of the tunnel may be an oncoming dragon. +% +The man who runs may fight again. + -- Menander +% +The man who sees, on New Year's day, Mount Fuji, a hawk, and an eggplant is forever blessed. + -- Old Japanese proverb +% +The meek will inherit the earth -- if that's OK with you. +% +The more the merrier. + -- John Heywood +% +The more things change, the more they stay insane. +% +The more things change, the more they'll never be the same again. +% +The only certainty is that nothing is certain. + -- Pliny the Elder +% +The only constant is change. +% +The only problem with seeing too much is that it makes you insane. + -- Phaedrus +% +The only reward of virtue is virtue. + -- Ralph Waldo Emerson +% +"The porcupine with the sharpest quills gets stuck on a tree more often." +% +The proof of the pudding is in the eating. + -- Miguel de Cervantes +% +The reverse side also has a reverse side. + -- Japanese proverb +% +The road to Hades is easy to travel. + -- Bion +% +The superfluous is very necessary. + -- Voltaire +% +The temperature of the aqueous content of an unremittingly ogled culinary vessel will not achieve 100 degrees on the Celsius scale. +% +The worst is enemy of the bad. +% +-- The writing implement is more potent than the claymore. +-- All articles that coruscate with resplendence are not truly auriferous. +-- When there are visible vapors having the prevenience in ignited carbonaceous materials, there is conflagration. +-- Sorting on the part of mendicants must be interdicted. +-- A plethora of individuals wither expertise in culinary techniques vitiated the potable concoction produced by steeping certain coupestibles. +-- The person presenting the ultimate cachinnation possesses thereby the optimal cachinnation. +-- Eleemosynary deeds have their initial incidence intramurally. +% +There are more things in heaven and earth than any place else. +% +There are more ways of killing a cat than choking her with cream. +% +There is no fool to the old fool. + -- John Heywood +% +There is no grief which time does not lessen and soften. +% +There is no proverb that is not true. + -- Cervantes +% +There's an old proverb that says just about whatever you want it to. +% +There's no heavier burden than a great potential. +% +There's no such thing as a free lunch. + -- Milton Friendman +% +There's no such thing as an original sin. + -- Elvis Costello +% +There's no time like the pleasant. +% +Things are more like they are today than they ever were before. + -- Dwight Eisenhower +% +Things are more like they used to be than they are now. +% +Things are not always what they seem. + -- Phaedrus +% +Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold. +% +Thou hast seen nothing yet. + -- Miguel de Cervantes +% +Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead. + -- Benjamin Franklin +% +Time and tide wait for no man. +% +Time as he grows old teaches all things. + -- Aeschylus +% +Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana. +% +Time goes, you say? +Ah no! +Time stays, *we* go. + -- Austin Dobson +% +Time sure flies when you don't know what you're doing. +% +To add insult to injury. + -- Phaedrus +% +To err is human, but I can REALLY foul things up. +% +To err is human, but when the eraser wears out before the pencil, you're overdoing it a little. +% +To err is human, to forgive is against company policy. +% +To err is human, to forgive unusual. +% +To err is human, to moo bovine. +% +To err is human, to purr feline. +To err is human, two curs canine. +To err is human, to moo bovine. +% +To err is human, to repent, divine, to persist, devilish. + -- Benjamin Franklin +% +To err is human. To blame someone else for your mistakes is even more human. +% +To err is human; to admit it, a blunder. +% +To err is human; to forgive is simply not our policy. + -- MIT Assasination Club +% +To err is humor. +% +To every Ph.D. there is an equal and opposite Ph.D. + -- B. Duggan +% +Treat your friend as if he might become an enemy. + -- Publilius Syrus +% +Trust in Allah, but tie your camel. + -- Arabian proverb +% +Truth can wait; he's used to it. +% +Turn the other cheek. + -- Jesus Christ +% +Two heads are better than one. + -- John Heywood +% +Two heads are more numerous than one. +% +Two is company, three is an orgy. +% +Two wrongs are only the beginning. + -- Kohn +% +Two wrongs don't make a right, but they make a good excuse. + -- Thomas Szasz +% +Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do. +% +Walking on water wasn't built in a day. + -- Jack Kerouac +% +We are what we are. +% +We are what we pretend to be. + -- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. +% +We have seen the light at the end of the tunnel, and it's out. +% +Well begun is half done. + -- Aristotle +% +What fools these morals be! +% +What fools these mortals be. + -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca +% +What one believes to be true either is true or becomes true. + -- John Lilly +% +What one fool can do, another can. + -- Ancient Simian Proverb +% +What we wish, that we readily believe. + -- Demosthenes +% +What you don't know can hurt you, only you won't know it. +% +What you don't know won't help you much either. + -- D. Bennett +% +Whatever it is, I fear Greeks even when they bring gifts. + -- Publius Vergilius Maro (Virgil) +% +When in doubt, follow your heart. +% +When in doubt, use brute force. + -- Ken Thompson +% +When nothing can possibly go wrong, it will. +% +When the ax entered the forest, the trees said, "The handle is one of us!" + -- Turkish proverb +% +When the blind lead the blind they will both fall over the cliff. + -- Chinese proverb +% +When the going gets tough, everyone leaves. + -- Lynch +% +When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping. +% +When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. + -- Hunter S. Thompson +% +When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail. +% +When the sun shineth, make hay. + -- John Heywood +% +When we talk of tomorrow, the gods laugh. +% +When you are at Rome live in the Roman style; when you are elsewhere live as they live elsewhere. + -- St. Ambrose +% +When you are in it up to your ears, keep your mouth shut. +% +When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. + -- Sherlock Holmes, "The Sign of Four" +% +Where there is much light there is also much shadow. + -- Goethe +% +While there's life, there's hope. + -- Publius Terentius Afer (Terence) +% +Whom the gods wish to destroy they first call promising. +% +Whom the mad would destroy, first they make Gods. + -- Bernard Levin +% +Without fools there would be no wisdom. +% +Words are the voice of the heart. +% +Words can never express what words can never express. +% +Words have a longer life than deeds. + -- Pindar +% +Would ye both eat your cake and have your cake? + -- John Heywood +% +You buttered your bread, now lie in it. +% +You can drive a horse to water, but a pencil must be lead. +% +You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can make a fool of yourself anytime. +% +You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can never fool your Mom. +% +You can fool some of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, and that is sufficient. +% +You can get everything in life you want, if you will help enough other people get what they want. +% +You can get much further with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone. + -- Al Capone + [Also attributed to Johnny Carson. Ed.] +% +You can go anywhere you want if you look serious and carry a clipboard. +% +You can make it illegal, but you can't make it unpopular. +% +You can move the world with an idea, but you have to think of it first. +% +You can never do just one thing. + -- Hardin +% +You can't break eggs without making an omelet. +% +You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair. +% +You cannot see the wood for the trees. + -- John Heywood +% +You get what you pay for. + -- Gabriel Biel +% +You k'n hide de fier, but w'at you gwine do wid de smoke? + -- Joel Chandler Harris, proverbs of Uncle Remus diff --git a/data/etc/fortunes/Riddles b/data/etc/fortunes/Riddles new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..7de8a70c15 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/etc/fortunes/Riddles @@ -0,0 +1,451 @@ +FORTUNE PROVIDES QUESTIONS FOR THE GREAT ANSWERS: #13 +A: Doc, Happy, Bashful, Dopey, Sneezy, Sleepy, & Grumpy +Q: Who were the Democratic presidential candidates? +% +FORTUNE PROVIDES QUESTIONS FOR THE GREAT ANSWERS: #15 +A: The Royal Canadian Mounted Police. +Q: What was the greatest achievement in taxidermy? +% +FORTUNE PROVIDES QUESTIONS FOR THE GREAT ANSWERS: #19 +A: To be or not to be. +Q: What is the square root of 4b^2? +% +FORTUNE PROVIDES QUESTIONS FOR THE GREAT ANSWERS: #21 +A: Dr. Livingston I. Presume. +Q: What's Dr. Presume's full name? +% +FORTUNE PROVIDES QUESTIONS FOR THE GREAT ANSWERS: #31 +A: Chicken Teriyaki. +Q: What is the name of the world's oldest kamikaze pilot? +% +FORTUNE PROVIDES QUESTIONS FOR THE GREAT ANSWERS: #4 +A: Go west, young man, go west! +Q: What do wabbits do when they get tiwed of wunning awound? +% +FORTUNE PROVIDES QUESTIONS FOR THE GREAT ANSWERS: #5 +A: The Halls of Montezuma and the Shores of Tripoli. +Q: Name two families whose kids won't join the Marines. +% +Knock, knock! + Who's there? +Sam and Janet. + Sam and Janet who? +Sam and Janet Evening... +% +Knucklehead: "Knock, knock" +Pee Wee: "Who's there?" +Knucklehead: "Little ol' lady." +Pee Wee: "Liddle ol' lady who?" +Knucklehead: "I didn't know you could yodel" +% +Q: "What is the burning question on the mind of every dyslexic existentialist?" +A: "Is there a dog?" +% +Q: Are we not men? +A: We are Vaxen. +% +Q: Do you know what the death rate around here is? +A: One per person. +% +Q: Heard about the who couldn't spell? +A: He spent the night in a warehouse. +% +Q: How can you tell when a Burroughs salesman is lying? +A: When his lips move. +% +Q: How did you get into artificial intelligence? +A: Seemed logical -- I didn't have any real intelligence. +% +Q: How do you catch a unique rabbit? +A: Unique up on it! + +Q: How do you catch a tame rabbit? +A: The tame way! +% +Q: How do you keep a moron in suspense? +% +Q: How do you know when you're in the section of Vermont? +A: The maple sap buckets are hanging on utility poles. +% +Q: How do you play religious roulette? +A: You stand around in a circle and blaspheme and see who gets struck by lightning first. +% +Q: How do you save a drowning lawyer? +A: Throw him a rock. +% +Q: How do you shoot a blue elephant? +A: With a blue-elephant gun. + +Q: How do you shoot a pink elephant? +A: Twist its trunk until it turns blue, then shoot it with a blue-elephant gun. +% +Q: How do you stop an elephant from charging? +A: Take away his credit cards. +% +Q: How does a hacker fix a function which doesn't work for all of the elements in its domain? +A: He changes the domain. +% +Q: How does the Polish Constitution differ from the American? +A: Under the Polish Constitution citizens are guaranteed freedom of speech, but under the United States constitution they are guaranteed freedom after speech. + -- being told in Poland, 1987 +% +Q: How many Bell Labs Vice Presidents does it take to change a light bulb? +A: That's proprietary information. Answer available from AT&T on payment of license fee (binary only). +% +Q: How many bureaucrats does it take to screw in a light bulb? +A: Two. One to assure everyone that everything possible is being done while the other screws the bulb into the water faucet. +% +Q: How many college football players does it take to screw in a lightbulb? +A: Only one, but he gets three credits for it. +% +Q: How many DEC repairman does it take to fix a flat? +A: Five; four to hold the car up and one to swap tires. + +Q: How long does it take? +A: It's indeterminate. It will depend upon how many flats they've brought with them. + +Q: What happens if you've got TWO flats? +A: They replace your generator. +% +Q: How many elephants can you fit in a VW Bug? +A: Four. Two in the front, two in the back. + +Q: How can you tell if an elephant is in your refrigerator? +A: There's a footprint in the mayo. + +Q: How can you tell if two elephants are in your refrigerator? +A: There's two footprints in the mayo. + +Q: How can you tell if three elephants are in your refrigerator? +A: The door won't shut. + +Q: How can you tell if four elephants are in your refrigerator? +A: There's a VW Bug in your driveway. +% +Q: How many existentialists does it take to screw in a lightbulb? +A: Two. One to screw it in and one to observe how the lightbulb itself symbolizes a single incandescent beacon of subjective reality in a netherworld of endless absurdity reaching out toward a maudlin cosmos of nothingness. +% +Q: How many hardware engineers does it take to change a lightbulb? +A: None. We'll fix it in software. + +Q: How many system programmers does it take to change a light bulb? +A: None. The application can work around it. + +Q: How many software engineers does it take to change a lightbulb? +A: None. We'll document it in the manual. + +Q: How many tech writers does it take to change a lightbulb? +A: None. The user can figure it out. +% +Q: How many Harvard MBA's does it take to screw in a lightbulb? +A: Just one. He grasps it firmly and the universe revolves around him. +% +Q: How many IBM 370's does it take to execute a job? +A: Four, three to hold it down, and one to rip its head off. +% +Q: How many IBM CPU's does it take to do a logical right shift? +A: 33. 1 to hold the bits and 32 to push the register. +% +Q: How many IBM types does it take to change a light bulb? +A: Fifteen. One to do it, and fourteen to write document number GC7500439-0001, Multitasking Incandescent Source System Facility, of which 10% of the pages state only "This page intentionally left blank", and 20% of the definitions are of the form "A:..... consists of sequences of non-blank characters separated by blanks". +% +Q: How many journalists does it take to screw in a lightbulb? +A: Three. One to report it as an inspired government program to bring light to the people, one to report it as a diabolical government plot to deprive the poor of darkness, and one to win a Pulitzer prize for reporting that Electric Company hired a lightbulb-assassin to break the bulb in the first place. +% +Q: How many lawyers does it take to change a light bulb? +A: One. Only it's his light bulb when he's done. +% +Q: How many lawyers does it take to change a light bulb? +A: Whereas the party of the first part, also known as "Lawyer", and the party of the second part, also known as "Light Bulb", do hereby and forthwith agree to a transaction wherein the party of the second part shall be removed from the current position as a result of failure to perform previously agreed upon duties, i.e., the lighting, elucidation, and otherwise illumination of the area ranging from the front (north) door, through the entryway, terminating at an area just inside the primary living area, demarcated by the beginning of +the carpet, any spillover illumination being at the option of the party of the second part and not required by the aforementioned agreement between the parties. + The aforementioned removal transaction shall include, but not be limited to, the following. The party of the first part shall, with or without elevation at his option, by means of a chair, stepstool, ladder or any other means of elevation, grasp the party of the second part and rotate the party of the second part in a counter-clockwise direction, this point being tendered non-negotiable. Upon reaching a point where the party of the second part becomes fully detached from the receptacle, the party of the first part shall have the option of disposing of the party of the second part in a manner consistent with all relevant and applicable local, state and federal statutes. Once separation and disposal have been achieved, the party of the first part shall have the option of beginning installation. Aforesaid installation shall occur in a manner consistent with the reverse of the procedures described in +step one of this self-same document, being careful to note that the rotation should occur in a clockwise direction, this point also being non-negotiable. The above described steps may be performed, at the option of the party of the first part, by any or all agents authorized by him, the objective being to produce the most possible revenue for the Partnership. +% +Q: How many marketing people does it take to change a lightbulb? +A: I'll have to get back to you on that. +% +Q: How many Martians does it take to screw in a lightbulb? +A: One and a half. +% +Q: How many Marxists does it take to screw in a lightbulb? +A: None: The lightbulb contains the seeds of its own revolution. +% +Q: How many mathematicians does it take to screw in a lightbulb? +A: One. He gives it to six Marxists, thereby reducing the problem to the earlier joke. +% +Q: How many members of the U.S.S. Enterprise does it take to change a light bulb? +A: Seven. Scotty has to report to Captain Kirk that the light bulb in the Engineering Section is getting dim, at which point Kirk will send Bones to pronounce the bulb dead (although he'll immediately claim that he's a doctor, not an electrician). Scotty, after checking around, realizes that they have no more new light bulbs, and complains that he "canna" see in the dark. Kirk will make an emergency stop at the next uncharted planet, Alpha Regula IV, to procure a light bulb from the natives, who, are friendly, but seem to be hiding something. Kirk, Spock, Bones, Yeoman Rand and two red shirt security officers beam down to the planet, where the two security officers are promply killed by the natives, and the rest of the landing party is captured. As something begins to develop between the Captain and Yeoman Rand, Scotty, back in orbit, is attacked by a Klingon destroyer and must warp out of orbit. Although badly outgunned, he cripples the Klingon and races back to the planet in order to rescue Kirk et. al. who have just saved the natives' from an awful fate and, as a reward, been given all lightbulbs they can carry. The new bulb is then inserted and the Enterprise continues on its five year mission. +% +Q: How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb? +A: Only one, but it takes a long time, and the light bulb has to really want to change. +% +Q: How many supply-siders does it take to change a light bulb? +A: None. The darkness will cause the light bulb to change by itself. +% +Q: How many surrealists does it take to change a light bulb? +A: Two, one to hold the giraffe, and the other to fill the bathtub with brightly colored machine tools. + + [Surrealist jokes just aren't my cup of fur. Ed.] +% +Q: How many Zen masters does it take to screw in a light bulb? +A: None. The Universe spins the bulb, and the Zen master stays out of the way. +% +Q: How much does it cost to ride the Unibus? +A: 2 bits. +% +Q: How was Thomas J. Watson buried? +A: 9 edge down. +% +Q: Know what the difference between your latest project and putting wings on an elephant is? +A: Who knows? The elephant *might* fly, heh, heh... +% +Q: Minnesotans ask, "Why aren't there more pharmacists from Alabama?" +A: Easy. It's because they can't figure out how to get the little bottles into the typewriter. +% +Q: What did Tarzan say when he saw the elephants coming over the hill? +A: "The elephants are coming over the hill." + +Q: What did he say when saw them coming over the hill wearing sunglasses? +A: Nothing, for he didn't recognize them. +% +Q: What do agnostic, insomniac dyslexics do at night? +A: Stay awake and wonder if there's a dog. +% +Q: What do monsters eat? +A: Things. + +Q: What do monsters drink? +A: Coke. (Because Things go better with Coke.) +% +Q: What do they call the alphabet in Arkansas? +A: The impossible dream. +% +Q: What do Winnie the Pooh and John the Baptist have in common? +A: The same middle name. +% +Q: What do you call 15 blondes in a circle? +A: A dope ring. + +Q: Why do blondes put their hair in ponytails? +A: To cover up the valve stem. +% +Q: What do you call a blind pre-historic animal? +A: Diyathinkhesaurus. + +Q: What do you call a blind pre-historic animal with a dog? +A: Diyathinkhesaurus Rex. +% +Q: What do you call a boomerang that doesn't come back? +A: A stick. +% +Q: What do you call a half-dozen Indians with Asian flu? +A: Six sick Sikhs (sic). +% +Q: What do you call a principal female opera singer whose high C is lower than those of other principal female opera singers? +A: A deep C diva. +% +Q: What do you call the money you pay to the government when you ride into the country on the back of an elephant? +A: A howdah duty. +% +Q: What do you call the scratches that you get when a female sheep bites you? +A: Ewe nicks. +% +Q: What do you get when you cross a mobster with an international standard? +A: You get someone who makes you an offer that you can't understand! +% +Q: What do you get when you cross the Godfather with an attorney? +A: An offer you can't understand. +% +Q: What do you have when you have a lawyer buried up to his neck in sand? +A: Not enough sand. +% +Q: What do you say to a New Yorker with a job? +A: Big Mac, fries and a Coke, please! +% +Q: What do you say to a Puerto Rican in a three-piece suit? +A: Will the defendant please rise? +% +Q: What does friendship among Soviet nationalities mean? +A: It means that the Armenians take the Russians by the hand; the Russians take the Ukrainians by the hand; the Ukranians take the Uzbeks by the hand; and they all go and beat up the Jews. +% +Q: What does it say on the bottom of Coke cans in North Dakota? +A: Open other end. +% +Q: What is green and lives in the ocean? +A: Moby Pickle. +% +Q: What is orange and goes "click, click?" +A: A ball point carrot. +% +Q: What is printed on the bottom of beer bottles in Minnesota? +A: Open other end. +% +Q: What is purple and commutes? +A: A boolean grape. +% +Q: What is purple and commutes? +A: An Abelian grape. +% +Q: What is purple and concord the world? +A: Alexander the Grape. +% +Q: What is the difference between a duck? +A: One leg is both the same. +% +Q: What is the difference between Texas and yogurt? +A: Yogurt has culture. +% +Q: What is the sound of one cat napping? +A: Mu. +% +Q: What lies on the bottom of the ocean and twitches? +A: A nervous wreck. +% +Q: What looks like a cat, flies like a bat, brays like a donkey, and plays like a monkey? +A: Nothing. +% +Q: What's a light-year? +A: One-third less calories than a regular year. +% +Q: What's buried in Grant's tomb? +A: A corpse. +% +Q: What's hard going in and soft and sticky coming out? +A: Chewing gum. +% +Q: What's tan and black and looks great on a lawyer? +A: A doberman. +% +Q: What's the contour integral around Western Europe? +A: Zero, because all the Poles are in Eastern Europe! + +Addendum: Actually, there ARE some Poles in Western Europe, but they are removable! + +Q: An English mathematician (I forgot who) was asked by his very religious colleague: Do you believe in one God? +A: Yes, up to isomorphism! + +Q: What is a compact city? +A: It's a city that can be guarded by finitely many near-sighted policemen! + -- Peter Lax +% +Q: What's the difference betweeen USL and the Graf Zeppelin? +A: The Graf Zeppelin represented cutting edge technology for its time. +% +Q: What's the difference between a dead dog in the road and a dead lawyer in the road? +A: There are skid marks in front of the dog. +% +Q: What's the difference between a duck and an elephant? +A: You can't get down off an elephant. +% +Q: What's the difference between a JAP and a baby elephant? +A: About 10 pounds. + +Q: How do you make them the same? +A: Force feed the elephant. +% +Q: What's the difference between a Mac and an Etch-a-Sketch? +A: You don't have to shake the Mac to clear the screen. +% +Q: What's the difference between an Irish wedding and an Irish wake? +A: One less drunk. +% +Q: What's the difference between Bell Labs and the Boy Scouts of America? +A: The Boy Scouts have adult supervision. +% +Q: What's the difference between the 1950's and the 1980's? +A: In the 80's, a man walks into a drugstore and states loudly, "I'd like some condoms," and then, leaning over the counter, whispers, "and some cigarettes." +% +Q: What's the difference between USL and the Titanic? +A: The Titanic had a band. +% +Q: What's tiny and yellow and very, very, dangerous? +A: A canary with the super-user password. +% +Q: What's yellow, and equivalent to the Axiom of Choice? +A: Zorn's Lemon. +% +Q: Where's the Lone Ranger take his garbage? +A: To the dump, to the dump, to the dump dump dump! + +Q: What's the Pink Panther say when he steps on an ant hill? +A: Dead ant, dead ant, dead ant dead ant dead ant... +% +Q: Who cuts the grass on Walton's Mountain? +A: Lawn Boy. +% +Q: Why did Menachem Begin invade Lebanon? +A: To impress Jodie Foster. +% +Q: Why did the astrophysicist order three hamburgers? +A: Because he was hungry. +% +Q: Why did the chicken cross the road? +A: He was giving it last rites. +% +Q: Why did the chicken cross the road? +A: To see his friend Gregory peck. + +Q: Why did the chicken cross the playground? +A: To get to the other slide. +% +Q: Why did the germ cross the microscope? +A: To get to the other slide. +% +Q: Why did the lone ranger kill Tonto? +A: He found out what "kimosabe" really means. +% +Q: Why did the programmer call his mother long distance? +A: Because that was her name. +% +Q: Why did the tachyon cross the road? +A: Because it was on the other side. +% +Q: Why do ducks have big flat feet? +A: To stamp out forest fires. + +Q: Why do elephants have big flat feet? +A: To stamp out flaming ducks. +% +Q: Why do firemen wear red suspenders? +A: To conform with departmental regulations concerning uniform dress. +% +Q: Why do mountain climbers rope themselves together? +A: To prevent the sensible ones from going home. +% +Q: Why do people who live near Niagara Falls have flat foreheads? +A: Because every morning they wake up thinking "What *is* that noise? Oh, right, *of course*! +% +Q: Why do the police always travel in threes? +A: One to do the reading, one to do the writing, and the other keeps an eye on the two intellectuals. +% +Q: Why does Washington have the most lawyers per capita and New Jersey the most toxic waste dumps? +A: God gave New Jersey first choice. +% +Q: Why don't lawyers go to the beach? +A: The cats keep trying to bury them. +% +Q: Why don't Scotsmen ever have coffee the way they like it? +A: Well, they like it with two lumps of sugar. If they drink it at home, they only take one, and if they drink it while visiting, they always take three. +% +Q: Why haven't you graduated yet? +A: Well, Dad, I could have finished years ago, but I wanted my dissertation to rhyme. +% +Q: Why is Christmas just like a day at the office? +A: You do all of the work and the fat guy in the suit gets all the credit. +% +Q: Why is it that Mexico isn't sending anyone to the '84 summer games? +A: Anyone in Mexico who can run, swim or jump is already in LA. +% +Q: Why is it that the more accuracy you demand from an interpolation function, the more expensive it becomes to compute? +A: That's the Law of Spline Demand. +% +Q: Why is Poland just like the United States? +A: In the United States you can't buy anything for zlotys and in Poland you can't either, while in the U.S. you can get whatever you want for dollars, just as you can in Poland. + -- being told in Poland, 1987 +% +Q: Why should you always serve a Southern Carolina football man soup in a plate? +A: 'Cause if you give him a bowl, he'll throw it away. +% +Q: Why was Stonehenge abandoned? +A: It wasn't IBM compatible. +% diff --git a/data/etc/fortunes/Songs & Poems b/data/etc/fortunes/Songs & Poems new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..7559efe92a --- /dev/null +++ b/data/etc/fortunes/Songs & Poems @@ -0,0 +1,6680 @@ +100 buckets of bits on the bus +100 buckets of bits +Take one down, short it to ground +FF buckets of bits on the bus + +FF buckets of bits on the bus +FF buckets of bits +Take one down, short it to ground +FE buckets of bits on the bus + +ad infinitum... +% +99 blocks of crud on the disk, +99 blocks of crud! +You patch a bug, and dump it again: +100 blocks of crud on the disk! + +100 blocks of crud on the disk, +100 blocks of crud! +You patch a bug, and dump it again: +101 blocks of crud on the disk! ... +% +A bit of talcum +Is always walcum + -- Ogden Nash +% +A box without hinges, key, or lid, +Yet golden treasure inside is hid. + -- J.R.R. Tolkien +% +A bunch of the boys were whooping it in the Malemute saloon; +The kid that handles the music box was hitting a jag-time tune; +Back of the bar, in a solo game, sat Dangerous Dan McGrew, +And watching his luck was his light-o'-love, the lady that's known as Lou. + -- Robert W. Service +% +A cousin of mine once said about money, +money is always there but the pockets change; +it is not in the same pockets after a change, +and that is all there is to say about money. + -- Gertrude Stein +% +A Elbereth Gilthoniel, +silivren penna m'íiriel +o menel aglar elenath! +Na chaered palan-d'íiriel +o galadhremmin ennorath, +Fanuilos, le linnathon +nef aear, s'íi nef aearon! + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +A fitter fits; Though sinners sin +A cutter cuts; And thinners thin +And an aircraft spotter spots; And paper-blotters blot +A baby-sitter I've never yet +Baby-sits -- Had letters let +But an otter never ots. Or seen an otter ot. + +A batter bats +(Or scatters scats); +A potting shed's for potting; +But no one's found +A bounder bound +Or caught an otter otting. + -- Ralph Lewin +% +A is for awk, which runs like a snail, and +B is for biff, which reads all your mail. +C is for cc, as hackers recall, while +D is for dd, the command that does all. +E is for emacs, which rebinds your keys, and +F is for fsck, which rebuilds your trees. +G is for grep, a clever detective, while +H is for halt, which may seem defective. +I is for indent, which rarely amuses, and +J is for join, which nobody uses. +K is for kill, which makes you the boss, while +L is for lex, which is missing from DOS. +M is for more, from which less was begot, and +N is for nice, which it really is not. +O is for od, which prints out things nice, while +P is for passwd, which reads in strings twice. +Q is for quota, a Berkeley-type fable, and +R is for ranlib, for sorting ar table. +S is for spell, which attempts to belittle, while +T is for true, which does very little. +U is for uniq, which is used after sort, and +V is for vi, which is hard to abort. +W is for whoami, which tells you your name, while +X is, well, X, of dubious fame. +Y is for yes, which makes an impression, and +Z is for zcat, which handles compression. + -- THE ABC'S OF UNIX +% +A lady with one of her ears applied +To an open keyhole heard, inside, +Two female gossips in converse free -- +The subject engaging them was she. +"I think", said one, "and my husband thinks +That she's a prying, inquisitive minx!" +As soon as no more of it she could hear +The lady, indignant, removed her ear. +"I will not stay," she said with a pout, +"To hear my character lied about!" + -- Gopete Sherany +% +A little word of doubtful number, +A foe to rest and peaceful slumber. +If you add an "s" to this, +Great is the metamorphosis. +Plural is plural now no more, +And sweet what bitter was before. +What am I? +% +A man is like a rusty wheel on a rusty cart, +He sings his song as he rattles along and then he falls apart. + -- Richard Thompson +% +A man of genius makes no mistakes. +His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery. + -- James Joyce, "Ulysses" +% +A man who fishes for marlin in ponds +will put his money in Etruscan bonds. +% +A mighty creature is the germ, +Though smaller than the pachyderm. +His customary dwelling place +Is deep within the human race. +His childish pride he often pleases +By giving people strange diseases. +Do you, my poppet, feel infirm? +You probably contain a germ. + -- Ogden Nash +% +A pig is a jolly companion, +Boar, sow, barrow, or gilt -- +A pig is a pal, who'll boost your morale, +Though mountains may topple and tilt. +When they've blackballed, bamboozled, and burned you, +When they've turned on you, Tory and Whig, +Though you may be thrown over by Tabby and Rover, +You'll never go wrong with a pig, a pig, +You'll never go wrong with a pig! + -- Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow" +% +A robin redbreast in a cage +Puts all Heaven in a rage. + -- Blake +% +A salamander scurries into flame to be destroyed. +Imaginary creatures are trapped in birth on celluloid. + -- Genesis, "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway" + +I don't know what it's about. I'm just the drummer. Ask Peter. + -- Phil Collins in 1975, when asked about the message behind + the previous year's Genesis release, "The Lamb Lies Down + on Broadway". +% +A single flow'r he sent me, since we met. +All tenderly his messenger he chose; +Deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet-- +One perfect rose. + +I knew the language of the floweret; +"My fragile leaves," it said, "his heart enclose." +Love long has taken for his amulet +One perfect rose. + +Why is it no one ever sent me yet +One perfect limousine, do you suppose? +Ah no, it's always just my luck to get +One perfect rose. + -- Dorothy Parker, "One Perfect Rose" +% +A truth that's told with bad intent +Beats all the lies you can invent. + -- William Blake +% +A-Z affectionately, +1 to 10 alphabetically, +from here to eternity without in betweens, +still looking for a custom fit in an off-the-rack world, +sales talk from sales assistants + when all i want to do is lower your resistance, +no rhythm in cymbals no tempo in drums, +love's on arrival, +she comes when she comes, +right on the target but wide of the mark... +% +Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!) +Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace, +And saw, within the moonlight in his room, +Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom, +An angel writing in a book of gold. +Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold, +And to the presence in the room he said, +"What writest thou?" The vision raised its head, +And with a look made of all sweet accord, +Answered, "The names of those who love the Lord." +"And is mine one?" said Abou. "Nay not so," +Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low, +But cheerly still; and said, "I pray thee then, +Write me as one that loves his fellow-men." +The angel wrote, and vanished. The next night +It came again with a great wakening light, +And showed the names whom love of God had blessed, +And lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest. + -- James Henry Leigh Hunt, "Abou Ben Adhem" +% +After a while you learn the subtle difference +Between holding a hand and chaining a soul, +And you learn that love doesn't mean security, +And you begin to learn that kisses aren't contracts +And presents aren't promises +And you begin to accept your defeats +With your head up and your eyes open, +With the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child, +And you learn to build all your roads +On today because tomorrow's ground +Is too uncertain. And futures have +A way of falling down in midflight, +After a while you learn that even sunshine burns if you get too much. +So you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting +For someone to bring you flowers. +And you learn that you really can endure... +That you really are strong, +And you really do have worth +And you learn and learn +With every goodbye you learn. + -- Veronic Shoffstall, "Comes the Dawn" +% +After all my erstwhile dear, +My no longer cherished, +Need we say it was not love, +Just because it perished? + -- Edna St. Vincent Millay +% +Again she fled, but swift he came. +Tin'uviel! Tin'uviel! +He called her by her elvish name; +And there she halted listening. +One moment stood she, and a spell +His voice laid on her: Beren came +And doom fell on Tin'uviel +That in his arms lay glistening. + +As Beren looked into her eyes +Within the shadows of her hair, +The trembling starlight of the skies +He saw there mirrored shimmering. +Tin'uviel the elven-fair, +Immortal maiden elven-wise, +About him cast her shadowy hair +And arms like silver glimmering. + +Long was the way that fate them bore, +O'er stony mountains cold and grey, +Through halls of iron and darkling door, +And woods of nightshade morrowless. +The Sundering Seas between them lay, +And yet at last they met once more, +And long ago they passed away +In the forest singing sorrowless. + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% + Against Idleness and Mischief + +How doth the little busy bee How skillfully she builds her cell! +Improve each shining hour, How neat she spreads the wax! +And gather honey all the day And labours hard to store it well +From every opening flower! With the sweet food she makes. + +In works of labour or of skill In books, or work, or healthful play, +I would be busy too; Let my first years be passed, +For Satan finds some mischief still That I may give for every day +For idle hands to do. Some good account at last. + -- Isaac Watts, 1674-1748 +% +Ah, but a man's grasp should exceed his reach, +Or what's a heaven for ? + -- Robert Browning, "Andrea del Sarto" +% +Ah, but the choice of dreams to live, +there's the rub. + +For all dreams are not equal, +some exit to nightmare +most end with the dreamer + +But at least one must be lived ... and died. +% +Ah, my friends, from the prison, they ask unto me, +"How good, how good does it feel to be free?" +And I answer them most mysteriously: +"Are birds free from the chains of the sky-way?" + -- Bob Dylan +% +Aleph-null bottles of beer on the wall, +Aleph-null bottles of beer, +You take one down, and pass it around, +Aleph-null bottles of beer on the wall. +% +Alive without breath, +As cold as death; +Never thirsty, ever drinking, +All in mail ever clinking. +% +All I need to have a good time, +Is a reefer, a woman and a bottle of wine. +With those three things I don't need no sunshine, +A reefer, a woman and a bottle of wine. + +All I want is to never grow old, +I want to wash in a bathtub of gold. +I want 97 kilos already rolled, +I want to wash in a bathtub of gold. + +I want to light my cigars with 10 dollar bills, +I like to have a cattle ranch in Beverly Hills. +I want a bottle of Red Eye that's always filled, +I like to have a cattle ranch in Beverly Hills. + -- Country Joe and the Fish, "Zachariah" +% +All my friends are getting married, +Yes, they're all growing old, +They're all staying home on the weekend, +They're all doing what they're told. +% +All that is gold does not glitter, +Not all those who wander are lost; +The old that is strong does not wither, +Deep roots are not reached by the frost. +From the ashes a fire shall be woken, +A light from the shadows shall spring; +Renewed shall be blade that was broken, +The crownless again shall be king. + -- J.R.R. Tolkien +% + All that you touch, And all you create, + All that you see, And all you destroy, + All that you taste, All that you do, + All you feel, And all you say, + And all that you love, All that you eat, + And all that you hate, And everyone you meet, + All you distrust, All that you slight, + All you save, And everyone you fight, + And all that you give, And all that is now, + And all that you deal, And all that is gone, + All that you buy, And all that's to come, + Beg, borrow or steal, And everything under the sun is + in tune, + But the sun is eclipsed + By the moon. + +There is no dark side of the moon... really... matter of fact it's all dark. + -- Pink Floyd, "Dark Side of the Moon" +% +All the lines have been written There's been Sandburg, +It's sad but it's true Keats, Poe and McKuen +With all the words gone, They all had their day +What's a young poet to do? And knew what they're doin' + +But of all the words written The bird is a strange one, +And all the lines read, So small and so tender +There's one I like most, Its breed still unknown, +And by a bird it was said! Not to mention its gender. + +It reminds me of days of So what is this line +Both gloom and of light. Whose author's unknown +It still lifts my spirits And still makes me giggle +And starts the day right. Even now that I'm grown? + +I've read all the greats +Both starving and fat, +But none was as great as +"I tot I taw a puddy tat." + -- Etta Stallings, "An Ode To Childhood" +% +All the world's a VAX, +And all the coders merely butchers; +They have their exits and their entrails; +And one int in his time plays many widths, +His sizeof being N bytes. At first the infant, +Mewling and puking in the Regent's arms. +And then the whining schoolboy, with his Sun, +And shining morning face, creeping like slug +Unwillingly to school. + -- A Very Annoyed PDP-11 +% +All who joy would win Must share it -- +Happiness was born a twin. + -- Lord Byron +% +An eye in a blue face +Saw an eye in a green face. +"That eye is like this eye" +Said the first eye, +"But in low place, +Not in high place." +% +An Hacker there was, one of the finest sort +Who controlled the system; graphics was his sport. +A manly man, to be a wizard able; +Many a protected file he had sitting on his table. +His console, when he typed, a man might hear +Clicking and feeping wind as clear, +Aye, and as loud as does the machine room bell +Where my lord Hacker was Prior of the cell. +The Rule of good St Savage or St Doeppnor +As old and strict he tended to ignore; +He let go by the things of yesterday +And took the modern world's more spacious way. +He did not rate that text as a plucked hen +Which says that Hackers are not holy men. +And that a hacker underworked is a mere +Fish out of water, flapping on the pier. +That is to say, a hacker out of his cloister. +That was a text he held not worth an oyster. +And I agreed and said his views were sound; +Was he to study till his head wend round +Poring over books in the cloisters? Must he toil +As Andy bade and till the very soil? +Was he to leave the world upon the shelf? +Let Andy have his labor to himself! + -- Chaucer + [well, almost. Ed.] +% +And all that the Lorax left here in this mess +was a small pile of rocks with the one word, "unless." +Whatever THAT meant, well, I just couldn't guess. +That was long, long ago, and each day since that day, +I've worried and worried and worried away. +Through the years as my buildings have fallen apart, +I've worried about it with all of my heart. + +"BUT," says the Oncler, "now that you're here, +the word of the Lorax seems perfectly clear! +UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot, +nothing is going to get better - it's not. +So... CATCH!" cries the Oncler. He lets something fall. +"It's a truffula seed. It's the last one of all! + +"You're in charge of the last of the truffula seeds. +And truffula trees are what everyone needs. +Plant a new truffula -- treat it with care. +Give it clean water and feed it fresh air. +Grow a forest -- protect it from axes that hack. +Then the Lorax and all of his friends may come back!" +% +And as we stand on the edge of darkness +Let our chant fill the void +That others may know + + In the land of the night + The ship of the sun + Is drawn by + The grateful dead. + -- Tibetan "Book of the Dead," ca. 4000 BC. +% +And did those feet, in ancient times, +Walk upon England's mountains green? +And was the Holy Lamb of God +In England's pleasant pastures seen? +And did the Countenance Divine +Shine forth upon these crowded hills? +And was Jerusalem builded here +Among these dark satanic mills? + +Bring me my bow of burning gold! +Bring me my arrows of desire! +Bring me my spears! O clouds unfold! +Bring me my chariot of fire! +I shall not cease from mental fight, +Nor shall my sword rest in my hand, +Till we have built Jerusalem +In England's green and pleasant land. + -- William Blake, "Jerusalem" +% +And here I wait so patiently +Waiting to find out what price +You have to pay to get out of +Going thru all of these things twice + -- Dylan, "Memphis Blues Again" +% +And I heard Jeff exclaim, +As they strolled out of sight, +"Merry Christmas to all -- +You take credit cards, right?" + -- "Outsiders" comic +% +And if California slides into the ocean, +Like the mystics and statistics say it will. +I predict this motel will be standing, +Until I've paid my bill. + -- Warren Zevon, "Desperados Under the Eaves" +% +And if sometime, somewhere, someone asketh thee, +"Who kilt thee?", tell them it 'twas the Doones of Bagworthy! +% +And if you wonder, +What I am doing, +As I am heading for the sink. +I am spitting out all the bitterness, +Along with half of my last drink. +% +And in the heartbreak years that lie ahead, +Be true to yourself and the Grateful Dead. + -- Joan Baez +% +And miles to go before I sleep. + -- Robert Frost +% +And now your toner's toney, Disk blocks aplenty +And your paper near pure white, Await your laser drawn lines, +The smudges on your soul are gone Your intricate fonts, +And your output's clean as light.. Your pictures and signs. + +We've labored with your father, Your amputative absence +The venerable XGP, Has made the Ten dumb, +But his slow artistic hand, Without you, Dover, +Lacks your clean velocity. We're system untounged- + +Theses and papers DRAW Plots and TEXage +And code in a queue Have been biding their time, +Dover, oh Dover, With LISP code and programs, +We've been waiting for you. And this crufty rhyme. + +Dover, oh Dover, Dover, oh Dover, arisen from dead. +We welcome you back, Dover, oh Dover, awoken from bed. +Though still you may jam, Dover, oh Dover, welcome back to the Lab. +You're on the right track. Dover, oh Dover, we've missed your clean + hand... +% +...and report cards I was always afraid to show +Mama'd come to school +and as I'd sit there softly cryin' +Teacher'd say he's just not tryin' +Got a good head if he'd apply it +but you know yourself +it's always somewhere else +I'd build me a castle +with dragons and kings +and I'd ride off with them +As I stood by my window +and looked out on those +Brooklyn roads + -- Neil Diamond, "Brooklyn Roads" +% +And so it was, later, +As the miller told his tale, +That her face, at first just ghostly, +Turned a whiter shade of pale. + -- Procol Harum +% +And the silence came surging softly backwards +When the plunging hooves were gone... + -- Walter de La Mare, "The Listeners" +% +And this is good old Boston, +The home of the bean and the cod, +Where the Lowells talk only to Cabots, +And the Cabots talk only to God. +% +And we heard him exclaim +As he started to roam: +"I'm a hologram, kids, +please don't try this at home!'" + -- Bob Violence +% +And... What in the world ever became of Sweet Jane? + She's lost her sparkle, you see she isn't the same. + Livin' on reds, vitamin C, and cocaine + All a friend can say is "Ain't it a shame?" + -- The Grateful Dead +% +Angels we have heard on High +Tell us to go out and Buy. + -- Tom Lehrer +% +Antonio Antonio +Was tired of living alonio +He thought he would woo Antonio Antonio +Miss Lucamy Lu, Rode of on his polo ponio +Miss Lucamy Lucy Molonio. And found the maid + In a bowery shade, + Sitting and knitting alonio. +Antonio Antonio +Said if you will be my ownio +I'll love tou true Oh nonio Antonio +And buy for you You're far too bleak and bonio +An icery creamry conio. And all that I wish + You singular fish + Is that you will quickly begonio. +Antonio Antonio +Uttered a dismal moanio +And went off and hid +Or I'm told that he did +In the Antartical Zonio. +% +April is the cruellest month... + -- Thomas Stearns Eliot +% +Are there those in the land of the brave +Who can tell me how I should behave + When I am disgraced + Because I erased + A file I intended to save? +% +As for the women, though we scorn and flout 'em, +We may live with, but cannot live without 'em. + -- Frederic Reynolds +% +As I was going up Punch Card Hill, + Feeling worse and worser, +There I met a C.R.T. + And it drop't me a cursor. + +C.R.T., C.R.T., + Phosphors light on you! +If I had fifty hours a day + I'd spend them all at you. + -- Uncle Colonel's Cursory Rhymes +% +As I was passing Project MAC, +I met a Quux with seven hacks. +Every hack had seven bugs; +Every bug had seven manifestations; +Every manifestation had seven symptoms. +Symptoms, manifestations, bugs, and hacks, +How many losses at Project MAC? +% +As I was walking down the street one dark and dreary day, +I came upon a billboard and much to my dismay, +The words were torn and tattered, +From the storm the night before, +The wind and rain had done its work and this is how it goes, + +Smoke Coca-Cola cigarettes, chew Wrigleys Spearmint beer, +Ken-L-Ration dog food makes your complexion clear, +Simonize your baby in a Hershey candy bar, +And Texaco's a beauty cream that's used by every star. + +Take your next vacation in a brand new Frigedaire, +Learn to play the piano in your winter underwear, +Doctors say that babies should smoke until they're three, +And people over sixty-five should bathe in Lipton tea. +% +As me an' me marrer was readin' a tyape, +The tyape gave a shriek mark an' tried tae escyape; +It skipped ower the gyate tae the end of the field, +An' jigged oot the room wi' a spool an' a reel! +Follow the leader, Johnny me laddie, +Follow it through, me canny lad O; +Follow the transport, Johnny me laddie, +Away, lad, lie away, canny lad O! + -- S. Kelly-Bootle, "The Devil's DP Dictionary" +% +As some day it may happen that a victim must be found +I've got a little list -- I've got a little list +Of society offenders who might well be underground +And who never would be missed -- who never would be missed. + -- Koko, "The Mikado" +% +At times discretion should be thrown aside, +and with the foolish we should play the fool. + -- Menander +% +Avoid Quiet and Placid persons unless you are in Need of Sleep. + -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata" +% +Azh nazg durbatal^uk, azh nazg gimbatul, +Azh nazg thrakatal^uk agh burzum ishi krimpatul! + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +Be assured that a walk through the ocean of most Souls would scarcely +get your Feet wet. Fall not in Love, therefore: it will stick to your face. + -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata" +% +Be valiant, but not too venturous. +Let thy attire be comely, but not costly. + -- John Lyly +% +Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all +Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. + -- John Keats +% +Because I do, +Because I do not hope, +Because I do not hope to survive +Injustice from the Palace, death from the air, +Because I do, only do, +I continue... + -- T.S. Pynchon +% +Beneath this stone lies Murphy, +They buried him today, +He lived the life of Riley, +While Riley was away. +% + better !pout !cry + better watchout + lpr why + santa claus < north pole > town + + cat /etc/passwd > list + ncheck list + ncheck list + cat list | grep naughty > nogiftlist + cat list | grep nice > giftlist + santa claus < north pole > town + + who | grep sleeping + who | grep awake + who | grep bad || good + for (goodness sake) { + be good + } +% +Between the idea +And the reality +Between the motion +And the act +Falls the Shadow + -- T.S. Eliot, "The Hollow Man" + + [Quoted in "VMS Internals and Data Structures", V4.4, when + referring to system service dispatching.] +% +Big M, Little M, many mumbling mice +Are making midnight music in the moonlight, +Mighty nice! +% +Bit off more than my mind could chew, +Shower or suicide, what do I do? + -- Julie Brown, "Will I Make it Through the Eighties?" +% +Black shiny mollies and bright colored guppies, +Shy little angels as gentle as puppies, +Swimming and diving with scarcely a swish, +They were just some of my tropical fish. + +Then I got mantas that sting in the water, +Deadly piranhas that itch for a slaughter, +Savage male betas that bite with a squish, +Now I have many less tropical fish. + + If you think that + Fish are peaceful + That's an empty wish. + Just dump them together + And leave them alone, + And soon you will have -- no fish. + -- To My Favorite Things +% +Blackout, heatwave, .44 caliber homicide, +The bums drop dead and the dogs go mad in packs on the West Side, +A young girl standing on a ledge, looks like another suicide, +She wants to hit those bricks, + 'cause the news at six got to stick to a deadline, +While the millionaires hide in Beekman place, +The bag ladies throw their bones in my face, +I get attacked by a kid with stereo sound, +I don't want to hear it but he won't turn it down... + -- Billy Joel, "Glass Houses" +% +Boy, get your head out of the stars above, +You get the maximum pleasure from a minimum of love. +Save your heart and let your body be enough, +To get the maximum pleasure from a minimum of love. +Save your heart and let your body be enough, +And get the maximum pleasure from a minimum of love. + -- Mac Macinelli, "Minimum Love" +% +Breathe deep the gathering gloom. +Watch lights fade from every room. +Bed-sitter people look back and lament; +another day's useless energies spent. + +Impassioned lovers wrestle as one. +Lonely man cries for love and has none. +New mother picks up and suckles her son. +Senior citizens wish they were young. + +Cold-hearted orb that rules the night; +Removes the colors from our sight. +Red is grey and yellow white. +But we decide which is real, and which is an illusion." + -- The Moody Blues, "Days of Future Passed" +% +Brillineggiava, ed i tovoli slati + girlavano ghimbanti nella vaba; +i borogovi eran tutti mimanti + e la moma radeva fuorigraba. + +"Figliuolo mio, sta' attento al Gibrovacco, + dagli artigli e dal morso lacerante; +fuggi l'uccello Giuggiolo, e nel sacco + metti infine il frumioso Bandifante". + -- Lewis Carroll, "Jabberwocky" +% +But has any little atom, + While a-sittin' and a-splittin', +Ever stopped to think or CARE + That E = m c**2 ? +% +But I was there and I saw what you did, +I saw it with my own two eyes. +So you can wipe off that grin; +I know where you've been-- +It's all been a pack of lies! +% +But scientists, who ought to know +Assure us that it must be so. +Oh, let us never, never doubt +What nobody is sure about. + -- Hilaire Belloc +% +But soft you, the fair Ophelia: +Ope not thy ponderous and marble jaws, +But get thee to a nunnery -- go! + -- Mark "The Bard" Twain +% +But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane, +In proving foresight may be vain: +The best laid schemes o' mice an' men +Gang aft a-gley, +An' lea'e us nought but grief and pain +For promised joy. + -- Robert Burns, "To a Mouse", 1785 +% +Buzz off, Banana Nose; Relieve mine eyes +Of hateful soreness, purge mine ears of corn; +Less dear than army ants in apple pies +Art thou, old prune-face, with thy chestnuts worn, +Dropt from thy peeling lips like lousy fruit; +Like honeybees upon the perfum'd rose +They suck, and like the double-breasted suit +Are out of date; therefore, Banana Nose, +Go fly a kite, thy welcome's overstayed; +And stem the produce of thy waspish wits: +Thy logick, like thy locks, is disarrayed; +Thy cheer, like thy complexion, is the pits. +Be off, I say; go bug somebody new, +Scram, beat it, get thee hence, and nuts to you. +% +By the time you swear you're his, +shivering and sighing +and he vows his passion is +infinite, undying -- +Lady, make a note of this: +One of you is lying. + -- Dorothy Parker, "Unfortunate Coincidence" +% +By the yard, life is hard. +By the inch, it's a cinch. +% +Calm down, it's only ones and zeroes, +Calm down, it's only bits and bytes, +Calm down, and speak to me in English, +Please realize that I'm not one of your computerites. +% +Cancel me not -- for what then shall remain? +Abscissas, some mantissas, modules, modes, +A root or two, a torus and a node: +The inverse of my verse, a null domain. + -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" +% +Candy +Is dandy +But liquor +Is quicker. + -- Ogden Nash, "Reflections on Ice-Breaking" +% +Catch a wave and you're sitting on top of the world. + -- The Beach Boys +% +Cecil, you're my final hope +Of finding out the true Straight Dope +For I have been reading of Schrodinger's cat +But none of my cats are at all like that. +This unusual animal (so it is said) +Is simultaneously alive and dead! +What I don't understand is just why he +Can't be one or the other, unquestionably. +My future now hangs in between eigenstates. +In one I'm enlightened, in the other I ain't. +If *you* understand, Cecil, then show me the way +And rescue my psyche from quantum decay. +But if this queer thing has perplexed even you, +Then I will *and* I won't see you in Schrodinger's zoo. + -- Randy F., Chicago, "The Straight Dope, a compendium + of human knowledge" by Cecil Adams +% +Certainly there are things in life that money can't buy, +But it's very funny -- did you ever try buying them without money? + -- Ogden Nash +% +Charlie was a chemist, +But Charlie is no more. +For what he thought was H2O, +Was H2SO4. +% +Children aren't happy without something to ignore, +And that's what parents were created for. + -- Ogden Nash +% +Chivalry, Schmivalry! + Roger the thief has a + method he uses for + sneaky attacks: +Folks who are reading are + Characteristically + Always Forgetting to + Guard their own bac ... +% +Christmas time is here, by Golly; Kill the turkeys, ducks and chickens; +Disapproval would be folly; Mix the punch, drag out the Dickens; +Deck the halls with hunks of holly; Even though the prospect sickens, +Fill the cup and don't say when... Brother, here we go again. + +On Christmas day, you can't get sore; Relations sparing no expense'll, +Your fellow man you must adore; Send some useless old utensil, +There's time to rob him all the more, Or a matching pen and pencil, +The other three hundred and sixty-four! Just the thing I need... how nice. + +It doesn't matter how sincere Hark The Herald-Tribune sings, +It is, nor how heartfelt the spirit; Advertising wondrous things. +Sentiment will not endear it; God Rest Ye Merry Merchants, +What's important is... the price. May you make the Yuletide pay. + Angels We Have Heard On High, +Let the raucous sleighbells jingle; Tell us to go out and buy. +Hail our dear old friend, Kris Kringle, Sooooo... +Driving his reindeer across the sky, +Don't stand underneath when they fly by! + -- Tom Lehrer +% +Cold be hand and heart and bone, +and cold be sleep under stone; +never more to wake on stony bed, +never, till the Sun fails and the Moon is dead. + +In the black wind the stars shall die, +and still on gold here let them lie, +till the dark lord lifts his hand +over dead sea and withered land. + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +Come fill the cup and in the fire of spring +Your winter garment of repentence fling. +The bird of time has but a little way +To flutter -- and the bird is on the wing. + -- Omar Khayyam +% +Come live with me and be my love, +And we will some new pleasures prove +Of golden sands and crystal brooks +With silken lines, and silver hooks. +There's nothing that I wouldn't do +If you would be my POSSLQ. + +You live with me, and I with you, +And you will be my POSSLQ. +I'll be your friend and so much more; +That's what a POSSLQ is for. + +And everything we will confess; +Yes, even to the IRS. +Some day on what we both may earn, +Perhaps we'll file a joint return. +You'll share my pad, my taxes, joint; +You'll share my life - up to a point! +And that you'll be so glad to do, +Because you'll be my POSSLQ. +% +Come live with me, and be my love, +And we will some new pleasures prove +Of golden sands, and crystal brooks, +With silken lines, and silver hooks. + -- John Donne +% +Come on, Virginia, don't make me wait! +Catholic girls start much too late, +Ah, but sooner or later, it comes down to fate, +I might as well be the one. +Well, they showed you a statue, told you to pray, +Built you a temple and locked you away, +Ah, but they never told you the price that you paid, +The things that you might have done. +So come on, Virginia, show me a sign, +Send up a signal, I'll throw you a line, +That stained glass curtain that you're hiding behind, +Never lets in the sun. +Darling, only the good die young! + -- Billy Joel, "Only The Good Die Young" +% +Come, every frustum longs to be a cone, +And every vector dreams of matrices. +Hark to the gentle gradient of the breeze: +It whispers of a more ergodic zone. + -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" +% +Come, landlord, fill the flowing bowl until it does run over, +Tonight we will all merry be -- tomorrow we'll get sober. + -- John Fletcher, "The Bloody Brother", II, 2 +% +Come, let us hasten to a higher plane, +Where dyads tread the fairy fields of Venn, +Their indices bedecked from one to n, +Commingled in an endless Markov chain! + -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" +% +Come, muse, let us sing of rats! + -- From a poem by James Grainger, 1721-1767 +% +Coming to Stores Near You: + +101 Grammatically Correct Popular Tunes Featuring: + + (You Aren't Anything but a) Hound Dog + It Doesn't Mean a Thing If It Hasn't Got That Swing + I'm Not Misbehaving + +And A Whole Lot More... +% +Confusion will be my epitaph +as I walk a cracked and broken path +If we make it we can all sit back and laugh +but I fear that tomorrow we'll be crying. + -- King Crimson, "In the Court of the Crimson King" +% +Death comes on every passing breeze, +He lurks in every flower; +Each season has its own disease, +Its peril -- every hour. + --Reginald Heber +% + Deck us all with Boston Charlie, + Walla Walla, Wash., an' Kalamazoo! + Nora's freezin' on the trolley, + Swaller dollar cauliflower, alleygaroo! + + Don't we know archaic barrel, + Lullaby Lilla Boy, Louisville Lou. + Trolley Molly don't love Harold, + Boola boola Pensacoola hullabaloo! + -- Pogo, "Deck Us All With Boston Charlie" [Walt Kelly] +% +Declared guilty... of displaying feelings of an almost human nature. + -- Pink Floyd, "The Wall" +% +Despising machines to a man, +The Luddites joined up with the Klan, + And ride out by night + In a sheeting of white +To lynch all the robots they can. + -- C. M. and G. A. Maxson +% +Didja' ever have to make up your mind, +Pick up on one and leave the other behind, +It's not often easy, and it's not often kind, +Didja' ever have to make up your mind? + -- Lovin' Spoonful +% +Disillusioned words like bullets bark, +As human gods aim for their mark, +Make everything from toy guns that spark +To flesh-colored christs that glow in the dark. +It's easy to see without looking too far +That not much is really sacred. + -- Bob Dylan +% +Do your otters do the shimmy? +Do they like to shake their tails? +Do your wombats sleep in tophats? +Is your garden full of snails? +% +Don't be concerned, it will not harm you, +It's only me pursuing something I'm not sure of, +Across my dreams, with neptive wonder, +I chase the bright elusive butterfly of love. +% +Don't let nobody tell you what you cannot do; +don't let nobody tell you what's impossible for you; +don't let nobody tell you what you got to do, +or you'll never know ... what's on the other side of the rainbow... +remember, if you don't follow your dreams, +you'll never know what's on the other side of the rainbow... + -- melba moore, "the other side of the rainbow" +% +Don't lose +Your head +To gain a minute +You need your head +Your brains are in it. + -- Burma Shave +% +Don't wake me up too soon... +Gonna take a ride across the moon... +You and me. +% +Double Bucky, you're the one, +You make my keyboard so much fun, +Double Bucky, an additional bit or two, (Vo-vo-de-o) +Control and meta, side by side, +Augmented ASCII, 9 bits wide! +Double Bucky, a half a thousand glyphs, plus a few! + +Oh, I sure wish that I, +Had a couple of bits more! +Perhaps a set of pedals to make the number of bits four. + +Double Double Bucky! Double Bucky left and right +OR'd together, outta sight! +Double Bucky, I'd like a whole word of, +Double Bucky, I'm happy I heard of, +Double Bucky, I'd like a whole word of you! + -- to Nicholas Wirth, who suggested that an extra bit + be added to terminal codes on 36-bit machines for use + by screen editors. [to the tune of "Rubber Ducky"] +% +Down to the Banana Republics, +Down to the tropical sun. +Go the expatriated Americans, +Hoping to find some fun. +Some of them go for the sailing, +Caught by the lure of the sea. +Trying to find what is ailing, +Living in the land of the free. +Some of them are running from lovers, +Leaving no forward address. +Some of them are running tons of ganja, +Some are running from the IRS. +Late at night you will find them, +In the cheap hotels and bars. +Hustling the senoritas, +While they dance beneath the stars. + -- Jimmy Buffet, "Banana Republics" +% +Drink and dance and laugh and lie +Love, the reeling midnight through +For tomorrow we shall die! +(But, alas, we never do.) + -- Dorothy Parker, "The Flaw in Paganism" +% +Easy come and easy go, + some call me easy money, +Sometimes life is full of laughs, + and sometimes it ain't funny +You may think that I'm a fool + and sometimes that is true, +But I'm goin' to heaven in a flash of fire, + with or without you. + -- Hoyt Axton +% +Eleanor Rigby + Sits at the keyboard + And waits for a line on the screen +Lives in a dream +Waits for a signal + Finding some code + That will make the machine do some more. +What is it for? + +All the lonely users, where do they all come from? +All the lonely users, why does it take so long? + +Hacker MacKensie +Writing the code for a program that no one will run +It's nearly done +Look at him working, fixing the bugs in the night when there's + nobody there. +What does he care? + +All the lonely users, where do they all come from? +All the lonely users, why does it take so long? +Ah, look at all the lonely users. +Ah, look at all the lonely users. +% +Endless the world's turn, endless the sun's spinning +Endless the quest; +I turn again, back to my own beginning, +And here, find rest. +% +Es brilig war. Die schlichte Toven + Wirrten und wimmelten in Waben; +Und aller-m"umsige Burggoven + Dir mohmen R"ath ausgraben. + -- Lewis Carrol, "Through the Looking Glass" +% +Euch ist becannt, was wir beduerfen; +Wir wollen stark Getraenke schluerfen. + -- Goethe, "Faust" +% +Even a man who is pure at heart, +And says his prayers at night +Can become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms, +And the moon is full and bright. + -- The Wolf Man, 1941 +% +Even in the moment of our earliest kiss, +When sighed the straitened bud into the flower, +Sat the dry seed of most unwelcome this; +And that I knew, though not the day and hour. +Too season-wise am I, being country-bred, +To tilt at autumn or defy the frost: +Snuffing the chill even as my fathers did, +I say with them, "What's out tonight is lost." +I only hoped, with the mild hope of all +Who watch the leaf take shape upon the tree, +A fairer summer and a later fall +Than in these parts a man is apt to see, +And sunny clusters ripened for the wine: +I tell you this across the blackened vine. + -- Edna St. Vincent Millay, "Even in the Moment of + Our Earliest Kiss", 1931 +% +Ever Onward! Ever Onward! +That's the sprit that has brought us fame. +We're big but bigger we will be, +We can't fail for all can see, that to serve humanity +Has been our aim. +Our products now are known in every zone. +Our reputation sparkles like a gem. +We've fought our way thru +And new fields we're sure to conquer, too +For the Ever Onward IBM! + -- Ever Onward, from the 1940 IBM Songbook +% +Ever since I was a young boy, +I've hacked the ARPA net, +From Berkeley down to Rutgers, He's on my favorite terminal, +Any access I could get, He cats C right into foo, +But ain't seen nothing like him, His disciples lead him in, +On any campus yet, And he just breaks the root, +That deaf, dumb, and blind kid, Always has full SYS-PRIV's, +Sure sends a mean packet. Never uses lint, + That deaf, dumb, and blind kid, + Sure sends a mean packet. +He's a UNIX wizard, +There has to be a twist. +The UNIX wizard's got Ain't got no distractions, +Unlimited space on disk. Can't hear no whistles or bells, +How do you think he does it? Can't see no message flashing, +I don't know. Types by sense of smell, +What makes him so good? Those crazy little programs, + The proper bit flags set, + That deaf, dumb, and blind kid, + Sure sends a mean packet. + -- UNIX Wizard +% +Every love's the love before +In a duller dress. + -- Dorothy Parker, "Summary" +% +Every man is as God made him, ay, and often worse. + -- Miguel de Cervantes +% +Every night my prayers I say, + And get my dinner every day; +And every day that I've been good, + I get an orange after food. +The child that is not clean and neat, + With lots of toys and things to eat, +He is a naughty child, I'm sure-- + Or else his dear papa is poor. + -- Robert Louis Stevenson +% +Everybody knows that the dice are loaded. Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed. Everybody knows the war is over. Everybody knows the good guys lost. Everybody knows the fight was fixed: the poor stay poor, the rich get rich. That's how it goes. Everybody knows. + +Everybody knows that the boat is leaking. Everybody knows the captain lied. Everybody got this broken feeling like their father or their dog +just died. + +Everybody talking to their pockets. Everybody wants a box of chocolates and long stem rose. Everybody knows. + +Everybody knows that you love me, baby. Everybody knows that you really do. Everybody knows that you've been faithful, give or take a night or two. Everybody knows you've been discreet, but there were so many people you just had to meet without your clothes. And everybody knows. + +And everybody knows it's now or never. Everybody knows that it's me or you. +And everybody knows that you live forever when you've done a line or two. +Everybody knows the deal is rotten: Old Black Joe's still pickin' cotton +for you ribbons and bows. And everybody knows. + -- Leonard Cohen, "Everybody Knows" +% +Everything's great in this good old world; +(This is the stuff they can always use.) +God's in his heaven, the hill's dew-pearled; +(This will provide for baby's shoes.) +Hunger and War do not mean a thing; +Everything's rosy where'er we roam; +Hark, how the little birds gaily sing! +(This is what fetches the bacon home.) + -- Dorothy Parker, "The Far Sighted Muse" +% +Everywhere you go you'll see them searching, +Everywhere you turn you'll feel the pain, +Everyone is looking for the answer, +Well look again. + -- Moody Blues, "Lost in a Lost World" +% +F: When into a room I plunge, I + Sometimes find some VIOLET FUNGI. + Then I linger, darkly brooding + On the poison they're exuding. + -- The Roguelet's ABC +% +Families, when a child is born +Want it to be intelligent. +I, through intelligence, +Having wrecked my whole life, +Only hope the baby will prove +Ignorant and stupid. +Then he will crown a tranquil life +By becoming a Cabinet Minister + -- Su Tung-p'o +% +Farewell we call to hearth and hall! +Though wind may blow and rain may fall, +We must away ere break of day +Far over wood and mountain tall. + + To Rivendell, where Elves yet dwell + In glades beneath the misty fell, + Through moor and waste we ride in haste, + And whither then we cannot tell. + +With foes ahead, behind us dread, +Beneath the sky shall be our bed, +Until at last our toil be passed, +Our journey done, our errand sped. + + We must away! We must away! + We ride before the break of day! + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +Felix Catus is your taxonomic nomenclature, +An endothermic quadroped, carnivorous by nature. +Your visual, olfactory, and auditory senses +Contribute to your hunting skills and natural defenses. +I find myself intrigued by your sub-vocal oscillations, +A singular development of cat communications +That obviates your basic hedonistic predelection +For a rhythmic stroking of your fur to demonstrate affection. +A tail is quite essential for your acrobatic talents: +You would not be so agile if you lacked its counterbalance; +And when not being utilitized to aid in locomotion, +It often serves to illustrate the state of your emotion. +Oh Spot, the complex levels of behavior you display +Connote a fairly well-developed cognitive array. +And though you are not sentient, Spot, and do not comprehend, +I nonetheless consider you a true and valued friend. + -- Lt. Cmdr. Data, "An Ode to Spot" +% +Fifteen men on a dead man's chest, +Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum! +Drink and the devil had done for the rest, +Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum! + -- Stevenson, "Treasure Island" +% +Fifty flippant frogs +Walked by on flippered feet +And with their slime they made the time +Unnaturally fleet. +% +Finality is death. +Perfection is finality. +Nothing is perfect. +There are lumps in it. +% +Five names that I can hardly stand to hear, +Including yours and mine and one more chimp who isn't here, +I can see the ladies talking how the times is gettin' hard, +And that fearsome excavation on Magnolia boulevard, +Yes, I'm goin' insane, +And I'm laughing at the frozen rain, +Well, I'm so alone, honey when they gonna send me home? + Bad sneakers and a pina colada my friend, + Stopping on the avenue by Radio City, with a + Transistor and a large sum of money to spend... +You fellah, you tearin' up the street, +You wear that white tuxedo, how you gonna beat the heat, +Do you take me for a fool, do you think that I don't see, +That ditch out in the Valley that they're diggin' just for me, +Yes, and goin' insane, +You know I'm laughin' at the frozen rain, +Feel like I'm so alone, honey when they gonna send me home? +(chorus) + -- Bad Sneakers, "Steely Dan" +% +Flying saucers on occasion + Show themselves to human eyes. +Aliens fume, put off invasion + While they brand these tales as lies. +% +"For a couple o' pins," says Troll, and grins, +"I'll eat thee too, and gnaw thy shins. +A bit o' fresh meat will go down sweet! +I'll try my teeth on thee now. + Hee now! See now! +I'm tired o' gnawing old bones and skins; +I've a mind to dine on thee now." + +But just as he thought his dinner was caught, +He found his hands had hold of naught. +Before he could mind, Tom slipped behing +And gave him the boot to larn him. + Warn him! Darn him! +A bump o' the boot on the seat, Tom thoguht, +Would be the way to larn him. + +But harder than stone is the flesh and bone +Of a troll that sits in the hills alone. +As well set your boot to the mountain's root, +For the seat of a troll don't feel it. + Peel it! Heal it! +Old Troll laughed, when he heard Tom groan, +And he knew his toes could feel it. + +Tom's leg is game, since home he came, +And his bootless foot is lasting lame; +But Troll don't care, and he's still there +With the bone he boned from its owner. + Doner! Boner! +Troll's old seat is still the same, +And the bone he boned from its owner! + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +For gin, in cruel +Sober truth, +Supplies the fuel +For flaming youth. + -- Noel Coward +% +For knighthood is not in the feats of war, +As for to fight in quarrel right or wrong, +But in a cause which truth cannot defer: +He ought himself for to make sure and strong, +Just to keep mixt with mercy among: +And no quarrel a knight ought to take +But for a truth, or for the common's sake. + -- Stephen Hawes +% +"Force is but might," the teacher said-- +"That definition's just." +The boy said naught but thought instead, +Remembering his pounded head: +"Force is not might but must!" +% +Four be the things I am wiser to know: +Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe. + +Four be the things I'd been better without: +Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt. + +Three be the things I shall never attain: +Envy, content, and sufficient champagne. + +Three be the things I shall have till I die: +Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye. + -- Dorothy Parker, "Inventory" [or "Not so Deep as a Well"?] +% +Friends, Romans, Hipsters, +Let me clue you in; +I come to put down Caesar, not to groove him. +The square kicks some cats are on stay with them; +The hip bits, like, go down under; +so let it lay with Caesar. The cool Brutus +Gave you the message: Caesar had big eyes; +If that's the sound, someone's copping a plea, +And, like, old Caesar really set them straight. +Here, copacetic with Brutus and the studs, -- +for Brutus is a real cool cat; +So are they all, all cool cats, -- +Come I to make this gig at Caesar's laying down. +% +From too much love of living, +From hope and fear set free, +We thank with brief thanksgiving, +Whatever gods may be, +That no life lives forever, +That dead men rise up never, +That even the weariest river winds somewhere safe to sea. + -- Swinburne +% +Get in touch with your feelings of hostility against the dying light. + -- Dylan Thomas [paraphrased periphrastically] +% +Get out, you old Wight! Vanish in the sunlight! +Shrivel like the cold mist, like the winds go wailing, +Out into the barren lands far beyond the mountains! +Come never here again! Leave your barrow empty! +Lost and forgotten be, darker than the darkness, +Where gates stand for ever shut, till the world is mended. + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +Gibson's Springtime Song (to the tune of "Deck the Halls"): + +'Tis the season to chase mousies (Fa la la la la, la la la la) +Snatch them from their little housies (...) +First we chase them 'round the field (...) +Then we have them for a meal (...) + +Toss them here and catch them there (...) +See them flying through the air (...) +Watch them fly and hear them squeal (...) +Falling mice have great appeal (...) + +See the hunter stretched before us (...) +He's chased the mice in field and forest (...) +Watch him clean his long white whiskers (...) +Of the blood of little critters (...) +% +Gil-galad was an Elven-king. +Of him the harpers sadly sing: +the last whose realm was fair and free +between the Mountains and the Sea. + +His sword was long, his lance was keen, +his shining helm afar was seen; +the countless stars of heaven's field +were mirrored in his silver shield. + +But long ago he rode away, +and where he dwelleth none can say; +for into darkness fell his star +in Mordor where the shadows are. + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +Gimme Twinkies, gimme wine, + Gimme jeans by Calvin Kline ... +But if you split those atoms fine, + Mama keep 'em off those genes of mine! + +Gimme zits, take my dough, + Gimme arsenic in my jelly roll ... +Call the devil and sell my soul, + But Mama keep dem atoms whole! + -- Milo Bloom, "The Split-Atom Blues," in "Bloom County" +% +Give me the avowed, the erect, the manly foe, +Bold I can meet -- perhaps may turn his blow! +But of all plagues, good Heaven, thy wrath can send, +Save me, oh save me from the candid friend. + -- George Canning +% +Give me your students, your secretaries, +Your huddled writers yearning to breathe free, +The wretched refuse of your Selectric III's. +Give these, the homeless, typist-tossed to me. +I lift my disk beside the processor. + -- Inscription on a Word Processor +% +Go placidly amid the noise and waste, +And remember what comfort there may be in owning a piece thereof. +Avoid quiet and passive persons, unless you are in need of sleep. +Rotate your tires. +Speak glowingly of those greater than yourself, +And heed well their advice -- even though they be turkeys. +Know what to kiss -- and when. +Remember that two wrongs never make a right, +But that three do. +Wherever possible, put people on "HOLD". +Be comforted, that in the face of all aridity and disillusionment, +And despite the changing fortunes of time, +There is always a big future in computer maintenance. + + You are a fluke of the universe ... + You have no right to be here. + Whether you can hear it or not, the universe + Is laughing behind your back. + -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata" +% +Go placidly amid the noise and waste, and remember what value there may +be in owning a piece thereof. + -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata" +% +God rest ye CS students now, The bearings on the drum are gone, +Let nothing you dismay. The disk is wobbling, too. +The VAX is down and won't be up, We've found a bug in Lisp, and Algol +Until the first of May. Can't tell false from true. +The program that was due this morn, And now we find that we can't get +Won't be postponed, they say. At Berkeley's 4.2. +(chorus) (chorus) + +We've just received a call from DEC, And now some cheery news for you, +They'll send without delay The network's also dead, +A monitor called RSuX We'll have to print your files on +It takes nine hundred K. The line printer instead. +The staff committed suicide, The turnaround time's nineteen weeks. +We'll bury them today. And only cards are read. +(chorus) (chorus) + +And now we'd like to say to you CHORUS: Oh, tidings of comfort and joy, +Before we go away, Comfort and joy, +We hope the news we've brought to you Oh, tidings of comfort and joy. +Won't ruin your whole day. +You've got another program due, tomorrow, by the way. +(chorus) + -- to God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen +% +Gold coast slave ship bound for cotton fields +Sold in a market down in New Orleans +Scarred old slaver knows he's doing alright +Hear him whip the women, just around midnight + +Ah, brown sugar how come you taste so good? +Ah, brown sugar just like a young girl should + +Drums beating cold English blood runs hot +Lady of the house wonderin' where it's gonna stop +House boy knows that he's doing alright +You should a heard him just around midnight. +... +I bet your mama was tent show queen +And all her girlfriends were sweet sixteen +I'm no school boy but I know what I like +You should have heard me just around midnight. + -- Rolling Stones, "Brown Sugar" +% +Got a wife and kids in Baltimore Jack, +I went out for a ride and never came back. +Like a river that don't know where it's flowing, +I took a wrong turn and I just kept going. + + Everybody's got a hungry heart. + Everybody's got a hungry heart. + Lay down your money and you play your part, + Everybody's got a hungry heart. + +I met her in a Kingstown bar, +We fell in love, I knew it had to end. +We took what we had and we ripped it apart, +Now here I am down in Kingstown again. + +Everybody needs a place to rest, +Everybody wants to have a home. +Don't make no difference what nobody says, +Ain't nobody likes to be alone. + -- Bruce Springsteen, "Hungry Heart" +% +Graphics blind the eyes. +Audio files deafen the ear. +Mouse clicks numb the fingers. +Heuristics weaken the mind. +Options wither the heart. + +The Guru observes the net +but trusts his inner vision. +He allows things to come and go. +His heart is as open as the ether. +% +H: If a 'GOBLIN (HOB) waylays you, + Slice him up before he slays you. + Nothing makes you look a slob + Like running from a HOB'LIN (GOB). + -- The Roguelet's ABC +% + Hack placidly amidst the noisy printers and remember what prizes there +may be in Science. As fast as possible get a good terminal on a good system. +Enter your data clearly but always encrypt your results. And listen to others, +even the dull and ignorant, for they may be your customers. Avoid loud and +aggressive persons, for they are sales reps. + If you compare your outputs with those of others, you may be surprised, +for always there will be greater and lesser numbers than you have crunched. +Keep others interested in your career, and try not to fumble; it can be a real +hassle and could change your fortunes in time. + Exercise system control in your experiments, for the world is full of +bugs. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive +for linearity and everywhere papers are full of approximations. Strive for +proportionality. Especially, do not faint when it occurs. Neither be cyclical +about results; for in the face of all data analysis it is sure to be noticed. + Take with a grain of salt the anomalous data points. Gracefully pass +them on to the youth at the next desk. Nurture some mutual funds to shield +you in times of sudden layoffs. But do not distress yourself with imaginings +-- the real bugs are enough to screw you badly. Murphy's Law runs the +Universe -- and whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt B*n dS = 0. + Therefore, grab for a piece of the pie, with whatever proposals you +can conceive of to try. With all the crashed disks, skewed data, and broken +line printers, you can still have a beautiful secretary. Be linear. Strive +to stay employed. + -- Technolorata, "Analog" +% +"Had he and I but met +By some old ancient inn, But ranged as infantry, +We should have sat us down to wet And staring face to face, +Right many a nipperkin! I shot at him as he at me, + And killed him in his place. +I shot him dead because -- +Because he was my foe, He thought he'd 'list, perhaps, +Just so: my foe of course he was; Off-hand-like -- just as I -- +That's clear enough; although Was out of work -- had sold his traps + No other reason why. +Yes; quaint and curious war is! +You shoot a fellow down +You'd treat, if met where any bar is +Or help to half-a-crown." + -- Thomas Hardy +% +Half a bee, philosophically, must ipso facto half not be. +But half the bee has got to be, vis-a-vis its entity. See? +But can a bee be said to be or not to be an entire bee, +When half the bee is not a bee, due to some ancient injury? +% +Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way. + -- Pink Floyd +% + Hard Copies and Chmod + +And everyone thinks computers are impersonal +cold diskdrives hardware monitors +user-hostile software + +of course they're only bits and bytes +and characters and strings +and files + +just some old textfiles from my old boyfriend +telling me he loves me and +he'll take care of me + +simply a discarded printout of a friend's directory +deep intimate secrets and +how he doesn't trust me + +couldn't hurt me more if they were scented in lavender or mould +on personal stationery + -- terri@csd4.milw.wisc.edu +% +Hark, the Herald Tribune sings, +Advertising wondrous things. + +Angels we have heard on High +Tell us to go out and Buy. + -- Tom Lehrer +% +Have you ever felt like a wounded cow +halfway between an oven and a pasture? +walking in a trance toward a pregnant + seventeen-year-old housewife's + two-day-old cookbook? + -- Richard Brautigan +% +Have you seen how Sonny's burning, +Like some bright erotic star, +He lights up the proceedings, +And raises the temperature. + -- The Birthday Party, "Sonny's Burning" +% +Have you seen the old man in the closed down market, +Kicking up the papers in his worn out shoes? +In his eyes you see no pride, hands hang loosely at his side +Yesterdays papers, telling yesterdays news. + +How can you tell me you're lonely, +And say for you the sun don't shine? +Let me take you by the hand +Lead you through the streets of London +I'll show you something to make you change your mind... + +Have you seen the old man outside the sea-man's mission +Memories fading like the metal ribbons that he wears. +In our winter city the rain cries a little pity +For one more forgotten hero and a world that doesn't care... +% +Have you seen the well-to-do, up and down Park Avenue? +On that famous thoroughfare, with their noses in the air, +High hats and Arrow collars, white spats and lots of dollars, +Spending every dime, for a wonderful time... +If you're blue and you don't know where to go to, +Why don't you go where fashion sits, +... +Dressed up like a million dollar trooper, +Trying hard to look like Gary Cooper, (super dooper) +Come, let's mix where Rockefeller's walk with sticks, +Or umberellas, in their mitts, +Puttin' on the Ritz. +... +If you're blue and you don't know where to go to, +Why don't you go where fashion sits, +Puttin' on the Ritz. +Puttin' on the Ritz. +Puttin' on the Ritz. +Puttin' on the Ritz. +% +He heard there oft the flying sound +Of feet as light as linden-leaves, +Of music welling underground, +In hidden hollows quavering. +Now withered lay the hemlock-sheaves, +And one by one with sighing sound +Whispering fell the beechen leaves +In the wintry woodland wavering. + +He sought her ever, wandering far +Where leaves of years were thickly strewn, +By light of moon and ray of star +In frosty heavens shivering. +Her mantle glinted in the moon, +As on a hill-top high and far +She danced, and at her feet was strewn +A mist of silver quivering. + +When winter passed, she came again, +And her song released the sudden spring, +Like rising lark, and falling rain, +And melting water bubbling. +He saw the elven-flowers spring +About her feet, and healed again +He longed by her to dance and sing +Upon the grass untroubling. + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +He thought he saw an albatross +That fluttered 'round the lamp. +He looked again and saw it was +A penny postage stamp. +"You'd best be getting home," he said, +"The nights are rather damp." +% +He who invents adages for others to peruse +takes along rowboat when going on cruise. +% +He who loses, wins the race, +And parallel lines meet in space. + -- John Boyd, "Last Starship from Earth" +% +He's been like a father to me, +He's the only DJ you can get after three, +I'm an all-night musician in a rock and roll band, +And why he don't like me I don't understand. + -- The Byrds +% +Her locks an ancient lady gave +Her loving husband's life to save; +And men -- they honored so the dame -- +Upon some stars bestowed her name. + +But to our modern married fair, +Who'd give their lords to save their hair, +No stellar recognition's given. +There are not stars enough in heaven. +% +Here I am again right where I know I shouldn't be +I've been caught inside this trap too many times +I must've walked these steps and said these words a + thousand times before +It seems like I know everybody's lines. + -- David Bromberg, "How Late'll You Play 'Til?" +% +Here I sit, broken-hearted, +All logged in, but work unstarted. +First net.this and net.that, +And a hot buttered bun for net.fat. + +The boss comes by, and I play the game, +Then I turn back to net.flame. +Is there a cure (I need your views), +For someone trapped in net.news? + +I need your help, I say 'tween sobs, +'Cause I'll soon be listed in net.jobs. +% +Here in my heart, I am Helen; + I'm Aspasia and Hero, at least. +I'm Judith, and Jael, and Madame de Sta"el; + I'm Salome, moon of the East. + +Here in my soul I am Sappho; + Lady Hamilton am I, as well. +In me R'ecamier vies with Kitty O'Shea, + With Dido, and Eve, and poor Nell. + +I'm all of the glamorous ladies + At whose beckoning history shook. +But you are a man, and see only my pan, + So I stay at home with a book. + -- Dorothy Parker +% +HERE LIES LESTER MOORE +SHOT 4 TIMES WITH A .44 +NO LES +NO MOORE + -- tombstone, in Tombstone, AZ +% +Hey dol! merry dol! ring a dong dillo! +Ring a dong! hop along! fal lal the willow! +Tom Bom, jolly Tom, Tom Bombadillo! + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +Hey! Come derry dol! Hop along, my hearties! +Hobbits! Ponies all! We are fond of parties. +Now let the fun begin! Let us sing together! + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +Hey! Come merry dol! derry dol! My darling! +Light goes the weather-wind and the feathered starling. + +Down along under Hill, shining in the sunlight, +Waiting on the doorstep for the cold starlight, +There my pretty lady is, River-woman's daughter, +Slender as the willow-wand, clearer than the water. + +Old Tom Bombadil water-lilies bringing +Comes hopping home again. Can you hear him singing? +Hey! Come merry dol! derry dol! and merry-o +Goldberry, Goldberry, merry yellow berry-o! + +Poor old Willow-man, you tuck your roots away! +Tom's in a hurry now. Evening will follow day. +Tom's going home again water-lilies bringing. +Hey! come derry dol! Can you hear me singing? + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +Hey! now! Come hoy now! Whither do you wander? +Up, down, near or far, here, there or yonder? +Sharp-ears, Wise-nose, Swish-tail and Bumpkin, +White-socks my little lad, and old Fatty Lumpkin! + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +Hey, diddle, diddle the overflow pdl +To get a little more stack; +If that's not enough then you lose it all +And have to pop all the way back. +% +Hickory Dickory Dock, +The mice ran up the clock, +The clock struck one, +The others escaped with minor injuries. +% +Hier liegt ein Mann ganz obnegleich; +Im Leibe dick, an Suden reich. +Wir haben ihn in das Grab gesteckt, Here lies a man with sundry flaws +Weil es uns dunkt er sei verreckt. And numerous Sins upon his head; + We buried him today because + As far as we can tell, he's dead. + + -- PDQ Bach's epitaph, as requested by his cousin Betty + Sue Bach and written by the local doggeral catcher; + "The Definitive Biography of PDQ Bach", Peter Schickele +% +Higgeldy Piggeldy, +Hamlet of Elsinore +Ruffled the critics by +Dropping this bomb: +"Phooey on Freud and his +Psychoanalysis -- +Oedipus, Shmoedipus, +I just love Mom." +% +...his disciples lead him in; he just does the rest. + -- The Who, "Tommy" +% +History is curious stuff + You'd think by now we had enough +Yet the fact remains I fear + They make more of it every year. +% +Hit them biscuits with another touch of gravy, +Burn that sausage just a match or two more done. +Pour my black old coffee longer, +While that smell is gettin' stronger +A semi-meal ain't nuthin' much to want. + +Loan me ten, I got a feelin' it'll save me, +With an ornery soul who don't shoot pool for fun, +If that coat'll fit you're wearin', +The Lord'll bless your sharin' +A semi-friend ain't nuthin' much to want. + +And let me halfway fall in love, +For part of a lonely night, +With a semi-pretty woman in my arms. +Yes, I could halfway fall in deep-- +Into a snugglin', lovin' heap, +With a semi-pretty woman in my arms. + -- Elroy Blunt +% +Ho! Ho! Ho! to the bottle I go +To heal my heart and drown my woe. +Rain may fall and wind may blow, +And many miles be still to go, +But under a tall tree I will lie, +And let the clouds go sailing by. + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +Ho! Tom Bombadil, Tom Bombadillo! +By water, wood and hill, by reed and willow, +By fire, sun and moon, harken now and hear us! +Come, Tom Bombadil, for our need is near us! + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +Hop along my little friends, up the Withywindle! +Tom's going on ahead candles for to kindle. +Down west sinks the Sun; soon you will be groping. +When the night-shadows fall, then the door will open, +Out of the winfow-panes light will twinkle yellow. +Fear no alder black! Heed no hoary willow! +Fear neither root nor bough! Tom goes on before you. +Hey now! merry dol! We'll be waiting for you! + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat? + -- Pink Floyd +% +How doth the little crocodile + Improve his shining tail, +And pour the waters of the Nile + On every golden scale! + +How cheerfully he seems to grin, + How neatly spreads his claws, +And welcomes little fishes in, + With gently smiling jaws! + -- Lewis Carrol, "Alice in Wonderland" +% +How doth the VAX's C-compiler + Improve its object code. +And even as we speak does it + Increase the system load. + +How patiently it seems to run + And spit out error flags, +While users, with frustration, all + Tear their clothes to rags. +% +Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall, +Humpty Dumpty had a great fall! +All the king's horses, +And all the king's men, +Had scrambled eggs for breakfast again! +% +I always will remember -- I was in no mood to trifle; +'Twas a year ago November -- I got down my trusty rifle +I went out to shoot some deer And went out to stalk my prey -- +On a morning bright and clear. What a haul I made that day! +I went and shot the maximum I tied them to my bumper and +The game laws would allow: I drove them home somehow, +Two game wardens, seven hunters, Two game wardens, seven hunters, +And a cow. And a cow. + +The Law was very firm, it People ask me how I do it +Took away my permit-- And I say, "There's nothin' to it! +The worst punishment I ever endured. You just stand there lookin' cute, +It turns out there was a reason: And when something moves, you shoot." +Cows were out of season, and And there's ten stuffed heads +One of the hunters wasn't insured. In my trophy room right now: + Two game wardens, seven hunters, + And a pure-bred guernsey cow. + -- Tom Lehrer, "The Hunting Song" +% +I am changing my name to Chrysler +I am going down to Washington, D.C. +I will tell some power broker + What they did for Iacocca +Will be perfectly acceptable to me! + +I am changing my name to Chrysler, +I am heading for that great receiving line. +When they hand a million grand out, + I'll be standing with my hand out, +Yessir, I'll get mine! +% +I B M +U B M +We all B M +For I B M!!!! + -- H.A.R.L.I.E. +% +I can live without +Someone I love +But not without +Someone I need. + -- "Safety" +% +I can see him a'comin' +With his big boots on, +With his big thumb out, +He wants to get me. +He wants to hurt me. +He wants to bring me down. +But some time later, +When I feel a little straighter, +I'll come across a stranger +Who'll remind me of the danger, +And then.... I'll run him over. +Pretty smart on my part! +To find my way... In the dark! + -- Phil Ochs +% +I can't complain, but sometimes I still do. + -- Joe Walsh +% +I don't know what Descartes' got, +But booze can do what Kant cannot. + -- Mike Cross +% +I don't need no arms around me... +I don't need no drugs to calm me... +I have seen the writing on the wall. +Don't think I need anything at all. +No! Don't think I need anything at all! +All in all, it was all just bricks in the wall. +All in all, it was all just bricks in the wall. + -- Pink Floyd, "Another Brick in the Wall", Part III +% +I don't wanna argue, and I don't wanna fight, +But there will definitely be a party tonight... +% +I don't want a pickle, + I just wanna ride on my motorsickle. +And I don't want to die, + I just want to ride on my motorcy. +Cle. + -- Arlo Guthrie +% +I gave my love an Apple, that had no core; +I gave my love a building, that had no floor; +I wrote my love a program, that had no end; +I gave my love an upgrade, with no cryin'. + +How can there be an Apple, that has no core? +How can there be a building, that has no floor? +How can there be a program, that has no end? +How can there be an upgrade, with no cryin'? + +An Apple's MOS memory don't use no core! +A building that's perfect, it has no flaw! +A program with GOTOs, it has no end! +I lied about the upgrade, with no cryin'! +% +I get up each morning, gather my wits. +Pick up the paper, read the obits. +If I'm not there I know I'm not dead. +So I eat a good breakfast and go back to bed. + +Oh, how do I know my youth is all spent? +My get-up-and-go has got-up-and-went. +But in spite of it all, I'm able to grin, +And think of the places my get-up has been. + -- Pete Seeger +% +I had an errand there: gathering water-lilies, +green leaves and lilies white to please my pretty lady, +the last ere the year's end to keep them from the winter, +to flower by her pretty feet till the snows are melted. + +Each year at summer's end I go to find them for her, +in a wide pool, deep and clear, far down Withywindle; +there they open first in spring and there they linger latest. + +By that pool long ago I found the River-daughter, +fair young Goldberry sitting in the rushes. +Sweet was her singing then, and her heart was beating! + +And that proved well for you--for now I shall no longer +go down deep again along the forest-water, +no while the year is old. Nor shall I be passing +Old Man Willow's house this side of spring-time, +not till the merry spring, when the River-daughter +dances down the withy-path to bathe in the water. + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me, +And what can be the use of him is more than I can see. +He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head; +And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed. + +The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow-- +Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow; +For he sometimes shoots up taller, like an india-rubber ball, +And he sometimes gets so little that there's none of him at all. + -- R.L. Stevenson +% +I have learned +To spell hors d'oeuvres +Which still grates on +Some people's n'oeuvres. + -- Warren Knox +% +I have lots of things in my pockets; +None of them is worth anything. +Sociopolitical whines aside, +Gan you give me, gratis, free, +The price of half a gallon +Of Gallo extra bad +And most of the bus fare home. +% +I have no doubt the Devil grins, +As seas of ink I spatter. +Ye gods, forgive my "literary" sins-- +The other kind don't matter. + -- Robert W. Service +% +I have that old biological urge, +I have that old irresistible surge, +I'm hungry. +% +I knew Leo G. Carrol +Was over a barrel +When Tarantula took to the hills. ["Lick it!"] +And I really got hot +When I saw Jeanette Scott +Fight a triffid that spits poison and kills. + +Science fiction, double feature +Doctor X will build a creature. +See androids fighting Brad and Janet +Anne Francis stars in Forbidden Planet +Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh +At the late night, double feature, picture show. + -- The Rocky Horror Picture Show +% +I know if you been talkin' you done said +just how suprised you wuz by the living dead. +You wuz suprised that they could understand you words +and never respond once to all the truth they heard. +But don't you get square! +There ain't no rule that says they got to care. +They can always swear they're deaf, dumb and blind. +% +I lately lost a preposition; +It hid, I thought, beneath my chair +And angrily I cried, "Perdition! +Up from out of under there." + +Correctness is my vade mecum, +And straggling phrases I abhor, +And yet I wondered, "What should he come +Up from out of under for?" + -- Morris Bishop +% +I lay my head on the railroad tracks, +Waitin' for the double E. +The railroad don't run no more. +Poor poor pitiful me. [chorus] + Poor poor pitiful me, poor poor pitiful me. + These young girls won't let me be, + Lord have mercy on me! + Woe is me! + +Well, I met a girl, West Hollywood, +Well, I ain't naming names. +But she really worked me over good, +She was just like Jesse James. +She really worked me over good, +She was a credit to her gender. +She put me through some changes, boy, +Sort of like a Waring blender. [chorus] + +I met a girl at the Rainbow Bar, +She asked me if I'd beat her. +She took me back to the Hyatt House, +I don't want to talk about it. [chorus] + -- Warren Zevon, "Poor Poor Pitiful Me" +% +I met him in a swamp down in Dagobah +Where it bubbles all the time like a giant cabinet soda + S-O-D-A soda +I saw the little runt sitting there on a log +I asked him his name and in a raspy voice he said Yoda + Y-O-D-A Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda + +Well I've been around but I ain't never seen +A guy who looks like a Muppet but he's wrinkled and green + Oh my Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda +Well I'm not dumb but I can't understand +How he can raise me in the air just by raising his hand + Oh my Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda + -- Weird Al Yankovic, "The Star Wars Song," to the tune of + "Lola" by the Kinks +% +I must Create a System, or be enslav'd by another Man's; +I will not Reason and Compare; my business is to Create. + -- William Blake, "Jerusalem" +% +I never saw a purple cow +I never hope to see one +But I can tell you anyhow +I'd rather see than be one. + -- Gellett Burgess + +I've never seen a purple cow +I never hope to see one +But from the milk we're getting now +There certainly must be one + -- Odgen Nash + +Ah, yes, I wrote "The Purple Cow" +I'm sorry now I wrote it +But I can tell you anyhow +I'll kill you if you quote it. + -- Gellett Burgess, many years later +% +I owe, I owe, +It's off to work I go... +% +"I said, "Preacher, give me strength for round 5." +He said,"What you need is to grow up, son." +I said,"Growin' up leads to growin' old, +And then to dying, and to me that don't sound like much fun." + -- John Cougar, "The Authority Song" +% +I saw a man pursuing the Horizon, +'Round and round they sped. +I was disturbed at this, +I accosted the man, +"It is futile," I said. +"You can never--" +"You lie!" He cried, +and ran on. + -- Stephen Crane +% +I see a bad moon rising. +I see trouble on the way. +I see earthquakes and lightnin' +I see bad times today. +Don't go 'round tonight, +It's bound to take your life. +There's a bad moon on the rise. + -- J. C. Fogerty, "Bad Moon Rising" +% +I see the eigenvalue in thine eye, +I hear the tender tensor in thy sigh. +Bernoulli would have been content to die +Had he but known such a-squared cos 2(phi)! + -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" +% +I sent a letter to the fish, I said it very loud and clear, +I told them, "This is what I wish." I went and shouted in his ear. +The little fishes of the sea, But he was very stiff and proud, +They sent an answer back to me. He said "You needn't shout so loud." +The little fishes' answer was And he was very proud and stiff, +"We cannot do it, sir, because..." He said "I'll go and wake them if..." +I sent a letter back to say I took a kettle from the shelf, +It would be better to obey. I went to wake them up myself. +But someone came to me and said But when I found the door was locked +"The little fishes are in bed." I pulled and pushed and kicked and + knocked, +I said to him, and I said it plain And when I found the door was shut, +"Then you must wake them up again." I tried to turn the handle, But... + + "Is that all?" asked Alice. + "That is all." said Humpty Dumpty. "Goodbye." +% +I sent a message to another time, +But as the days unwind -- this I just can't believe, +I sent a message to another plane, +Maybe it's all a game -- but this I just can't conceive. +... +I met someone who looks at lot like you, +She does the things you do, but she is an IBM. +She's only programmed to be very nice, +But she's as cold as ice, whenever I get too near, +She tells me that she likes me very much, +But when I try to touch, she makes it all too clear. +... +I realize that it must seem so strange, +That time has rearranged, but time has the final word, +She knows I think of you, she reads my mind, +She tries to be unkind, she knows nothing of our world. + -- ELO, "Yours Truly, 2095" +% +I stood on the leading edge, +The eastern seaboard at my feet. +"Jump!" said Yoko Ono +I'm too scared and good-looking, I cried. +Go on and give it a try, +Why prolong the agony, all men must die. + -- Roger Waters, "The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking" +% +I think that I shall never hear +A poem lovelier than beer. +The stuff that Joe's Bar has on tap, +With golden base and snowy cap. +The stuff that I can drink all day +Until my mem'ry melts away. +Poems are made by fools, I fear +But only Schlitz can make a beer. +% +I think that I shall never see +A billboard lovely as a tree. +Indeed, unless the billboards fall +I'll never see a tree at all. + -- Ogden Nash +% +I think that I shall never see +A thing as lovely as a tree. +But as you see the trees have gone +They went this morning with the dawn. +A logging firm from out of town +Came and chopped the trees all down. +But I will trick those dirty skunks +And write a brand new poem called 'Trunks'. +% +"I thought that you said you were 20 years old!" +"As a programmer, yes," she replied, +"And you claimed to be very near two meters tall!" +"You said you were blonde, but you lied!" +Oh, she was a hacker and he was one, too, +They had so much in common, you'd say. +They exchanged jokes and poems, and clever new hacks, +And prompts that were cute or risque'. +He sent her a picture of his brother Sam, +She sent one from some past high school day, +And it might have gone on for the rest of their lives, +If they hadn't met in L.A. +"Your beard is an armpit," she said in disgust. +He answered, "Your armpit's a beard!" +And they chorused: "I think I could stand all the rest +If you were not so totally weird!" +If she had not said what he wanted to hear, +And he had not done just the same, +They'd have been far more honest, and never have met, +And would not have had fun with the game. + -- Judith Schrier, "Face to Face After Six Months of + Electronic Mail" +% +I used to be such a sweet sweet thing, 'til they got a hold of me, +I opened doors for little old ladies, I helped the blind to see, +I got no friends 'cause they read the papers, they can't be seen, +With me, and I'm feelin' real shot down, +And I'm, uh, feelin' mean, + No more, Mr. Nice Guy, + No more, Mr. Clean, + No more, Mr. Nice Guy, +They say "He's sick, he's obscene". + +My dog bit me on the leg today, my cat clawed my eyes, +Ma's been thrown out of the social circle, and Dad has to hide, +I went to church, incognito, when everybody rose, +The reverend Smithy, he recognized me, +And punched me in the nose, he said, +(chorus) +He said "You're sick, you're obscene". + -- Alice Cooper, "No More Mr. Nice Guy" +% +I was born in a barrel of butcher knives +Trouble I love and peace I despise +Wild horses kicked me in my side +Then a rattlesnake bit me and he walked off and died. + -- Bo Diddley +% +I was eatin' some chop suey, +With a lady in St. Louie, +When there sudden comes a knockin' at the door. +And that knocker, he says, "Honey, +Roll this rocker out some money, +Or your daddy shoots a baddie to the floor." + -- Mr. Miggle +% +I went home with a waitress, +The way I always do. +How I was I to know? +She was with the Russians too. + +I was gambling in Havana, +I took a little risk. +Send lawyers, guns, and money, +Dad, get me out of this. + -- Warren Zevon, "Lawyers, Guns and Money" +% +I went over to my friend, he was eatin' a pickle. +I said "Hi, what's happenin'?" +He said "Nothin'." +Try to sing this song with that kind of enthusiasm; +As if you just squashed a cop. + -- Arlo Guthrie, "Motorcycle Song" +% +I will not play at tug o' war. +I'd rather play at hug o' war, +Where everyone hugs +Instead of tugs, +Where everyone giggles +And rolls on the rug, +Where everyone kisses, +And everyone grins, +And everyone cuddles, +And everyone wins. + -- Shel Silverstein, "Hug o' War" +% +I woke up a feelin' mean +went down to play the slot machine +the wheels turned round, +and the letters read +"Better head back to Tennessee Jed" + -- Grateful Dead +% +I would like to know +What I was fencing in +And what I was fencing out. + -- Robert Frost +% +I'd never cry if I did find + A blue whale in my soup... +Nor would I mind a porcupine + Inside a chicken coop. +Yes life is fine when things combine, + Like ham in beef chow mein... +But lord, this time I think I mind, + They've put acid in my rain. + --- Milo Bloom +% +I'd rather laugh with the sinners, +Than cry with the saints, +The sinners are much more fun! + -- Billy Joel, "Only The Good Die Young" +% +I'll grant thee random access to my heart, +Thoul't tell me all the constants of thy love; +And so we two shall all love's lemmas prove +And in our bound partition never part. + +Cancel me not -- for what then shall remain? +Abscissas, some mantissas, modules, modes, +A root or two, a torus and a node: +The inverse of my verse, a null domain. + +I see the eigenvalue in thine eye, +I hear the tender tensor in thy sigh. +Bernoulli would have been content to die +Had he but known such a-squared cos 2(thi)! + -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" +% +I'll learn to play the Saxophone, +I play just what I feel. +Drink Scotch whisky all night long, +And die behind the wheel. +They got a name for the winners in the world, +I want a name when I lose. +They call Alabama the Crimson Tide, +Call me Deacon Blues. + -- Becker and Fagan, "Deacon Blues" +% +I'll meet you... on the dark side of the moon... + -- Pink Floyd +% +I'm an artist. +But it's not what I really want to do. +What I really want to do is be a shoe salesman. +I know what you're going to say -- +"Dreamer! Get your head out of the clouds." +All right! But it's what I want to do. +Instead I have to go on painting all day long. + +The world should make a place for shoe salesmen. + -- J. Feiffer +% +I'm free -- and freedom tastes of reality. + -- The Who +% +I'm just as sad as sad can be! + I've missed your special date. +Please say that you're not mad at me + My tax return is late. + -- Modern Lines for Modern Greeting Cards +% +i'm living so far beyond my income that we may almost be said to be +living apart. + -- e. e. cummings +% +I'm N-ary the tree, I am, +N-ary the tree, I am, I am. +I'm getting traversed by the parser next door, +She's traversed me seven times before. +And ev'ry time it was an N-ary (N-ary!) +Never wouldn't ever do a binary. (No sir!) +I'm 'er eighth tree that was N-ary. +N-ary the tree I am, I am, +N-ary the tree I am. + -- Stolen from Paul Revere and the Raiders +% +I'm So Miserable Without You It's Almost Like Having You Here + -- Song title by Stephen Bishop. + +She Got the Gold Mine, I Got the Shaft + -- Song title by Jerry Reed. + +When My Love Comes Back from the Ladies' Room Will I Be Too Old to Care? + -- Song title by Lewis Grizzard. + +I Don't Know Whether to Kill Myself or Go Bowling + -- Unattributed song title. + +Drop Kick Me, Jesus, Through the Goal Posts of Life + -- Unattributed song title. +% +I'm very good at integral and differential calculus, +I know the scientific names of beings animalculous; +In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral, +I am the very model of a modern Major-General. + -- Gilbert & Sullivan, "Pirates of Penzance" +% +I've been on this lonely road so long, +Does anybody know where it goes, +I remember last time the signs pointed home, +A month ago. + -- Carpenters, "Road Ode" +% +I've built a better model than the one at Data General +For data bases vegetable, animal, and mineral +My OS handles CPUs with multiplexed duality; +My PL/1 compiler shows impressive functionality. +My storage system's better than magnetic core polarity, +You never have to bother checking out a bit for parity; +There isn't any reason to install non-static floor matting; +My disk drive has capacity for variable formatting. + +I feel compelled to mention what I know to be a gloating point: +There's lots of room in memory for variables floating-point, +Which shows for input vegetable, animal, and mineral +I've built a better model than the one at Data General. + + -- Steve Levine, "A Computer Song" (To the tune of + "Modern Major General", from "Pirates of Penzance", + by Gilbert & Sullivan) +% +I/O, I/O, +It's off to disk I go, +A bit or byte to read or write, +I/O, I/O, I/O... +% +Iam +not +very +happy +acting +pleased +whenever +prominent +scientists +overmagnify +intellectual +enlightenment +% +IBM had a PL/I, + Its syntax worse than JOSS; +And everywhere this language went, + It was a total loss. +% +If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, +... it expects what never was and never will be. + -- Thomas Jefferson +% +If a system is administered wisely, +its users will be content. +They enjoy hacking their code +and don't waste time implementing +labor-saving shell scripts. +Since they dearly love their accounts, +they aren't interested in other machines. +There may be telnet, rlogin, and ftp, +but these don't access any hosts. +There may be an arsenal of cracks and malware, +but nobody ever uses them. +People enjoy reading their mail, +take pleasure in being with their newsgroups, +spend weekends working at their terminals, +delight in the doings at the site. +And even though the next system is so close +that users can hear its key clicks and biff beeps, +they are content to die of old age +without ever having gone to see it. +% +If all be true that I do think, +There be five reasons why one should drink; +Good friends, good wine, or being dry, +Or lest we should be by-and-by, +Or any other reason why. +% +If all the seas were ink, +And all the reeds were pens, +And all the skies were parchment, +And all the men could write, +These would not suffice +To write down all the red tape +Of this Government. +% +If an S and an I and an O and a U +With an X at the end spell Su; +And an E and a Y and an E spell I, +Pray what is a speller to do? +Then, if also an S and an I and a G +And an HED spell side, +There's nothing much left for a speller to do +But to go commit siouxeyesighed. + -- Charles Follen Adams, "An Orthographic Lament" +% +If Dr. Seuss Were a Technical Writer..... + +Here's an easy game to play. +Here's an easy thing to say: + +If a packet hits a pocket on a socket on a port, +And the bus is interrupted as a very last resort, +And the address of the memory makes your floppy disk abort, +Then the socket packet pocket has an error to report! + +If your cursor finds a menu item followed by a dash, +And the double-clicking icon puts your window in the trash, +And your data is corrupted 'cause the index doesn't hash, +then your situation's hopeless, and your system's gonna crash! + +You can't say this? What a shame, sir! +We'll find you another game, sir. + +If the label on the cable on the table at your house, +Says the network is connected to the button on your mouse, +But your packets want to tunnel on another protocol, +That's repeatedly rejected by the printer down the hall, +And your screen is all distorted by the side effects of gauss, +So your icons in the window are as wavy as a souse, +Then you may as well reboot and go out with a bang, +'Cause as sure as I'm a poet, the sucker's gonna hang! + +When the copy of your floppy's getting sloppy on the disk, +And the microcode instructions cause unnecessary risc, +Then you have to flash your memory and you'll want to ram your rom. +Quickly turn off the computer and be sure to tell your mom! + + -- DementDJ@ccip.perkin-elmer.com (DementDJ) [rec.humor.funny] +% +If I could read your mind, love, +What a tale your thoughts could tell, +Just like a paperback novel, +The kind the drugstore sells, +When you reach the part where the heartaches come, +The hero would be me, +Heroes often fail, +You won't read that book again, because + the ending is just too hard to take. + +I walk away, like a movie star, +Who gets burned in a three way script, +Enter number two, +A movie queen to play the scene +Of bringing all the good things out in me, +But for now, love, let's be real +I never thought I could act this way, +And I've got to say that I just don't get it, +I don't know where we went wrong but the feeling is gone +And I just can't get it back... + -- Gordon Lightfoot, "If You Could Read My Mind" +% +If I could stick my pen in my heart, +I would spill it all over the stage. +Would it satisfy ya, would it slide on by ya, +Would you think the boy was strange? +Ain't he strange? +... +If I could stick a knife in my heart, +Suicide right on the stage, +Would it be enough for your teenage lust, +Would it help to ease the pain? +Ease your brain? + -- Rolling Stones, "It's Only Rock'N Roll" +% +If I promised you the moon and the stars, would you believe it? + -- Alan Parsons Project +% +If I traveled to the end of the rainbow +As Dame Fortune did intend, +Murphy would be there to tell me +The pot's at the other end. + -- Bert Whitney +% +If researchers wrote nursery rhymes... + +Little Miss Muffet sat on her gluteal region, +Eating components of soured milk. +On at least one occasion, + along came an arachnid and sat down beside her, +Or at least in her vicinity, +And caused her to feel an overwhelming, but not paralyzing, fear, +Which motivated the patient to leave the area rather quickly. + -- Ann Melugin Williams +% +If she had not been cupric in her ions, +Her shape ovoidal, +Their romance might have flourished. +But he built tetrahedral in his shape, +His ions ferric, +Love could not help but die, +Uncatylised, inert, and undernourished. +% +If you had just a minute to breathe, +And they granted you one final wish, +Would you ask for something +Like another chance? + -- Traffic, "The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys" +% +If you stick a stock of liquor in your locker, +It is slick to stick a lock upon your stock. + Or some joker who is slicker, + Will trick you of your liquor, +If you fail to lock your liquor with a lock. +% +If you're worried by earthquakes and nuclear war, +As well as by traffic and crime, +Consider how worry-free gophers are, +Though living on burrowed time. + -- Richard Armour, WSJ, 11/7/83 +% +Il brilgue: les t^oves libricilleux + Se gyrent et frillant dans le guave, +Enm^im'es sont les gougebosquex, + Et le m^omerade horgrave. + +Es brilig war. Die schlichte Toven + Wirrten und wimmelten in Waben; +Und aller-mumsige Burggoven + Dir mohmen Rath ausgraben. + -- Lewis Carrol, "Through the Looking Glass" +% +In /users3 did Kubla Kahn +A stately pleasure dome decree, +Where /bin, the sacred river ran +Through Test Suites measureless to Man +Down to a sunless C. +% +In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun. +Find the fun and snap! The job's a game. +And every task you undertake, becomes a piece of cake, + a lark, a spree; it's very clear to see. + -- Mary Poppins +% +In high school in Brooklyn +I was the baseball manager, +proud as I could be +I chased baseballs, +gathered thrown bats +handed out the towels Eventually, I bought my own +It was very important work but it was dark blue while +for a small spastic kid, the official ones were green +but I was a team member Nobody ever said anything +When the team got to me about my blue jacket; +their warm-up jackets the guys were my friends +I didn't get one Yet it hurt me all year +Only the regular team to wear that blue jacket +got these jackets, and among all those green ones +surely not a manager Even now, forty years after, + I still recall that jacket + and the memory goes on hurting. + -- Bart Lanier Safford III, "An Obscured Radiance" +% +In Riemann, Hilbert or in Banach space +Let superscripts and subscripts go their ways. +Our asymptotes no longer out of phase, +We shall encounter, counting, face to face. + -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" +% +In the dimestores and bus stations +People talk of situations +Read books repeat quotations +Draw conclusions on the wall. + -- Bob Dylan +% +In the early morning queue, +With a listing in my hand. +With a worry in my heart, There on terminal number 9, +Waitin' here in CERAS-land. Pascal run all set to go. +I'm a long way from sleep, But I'm waitin' in the queue, +How I miss a good meal so. With this code that ever grows. +In the early mornin' queue, Now the lobby chairs are soft, +With no place to go. But that can't make the queue move fast. + Hey, there it goes my friend, + I've moved up one at last. + -- Ernest Adams, "Early Morning Queue", to "Early + Morning Rain" by G. Lightfoot +% +In the land of the dark the Ship of the +Sun is driven by the Grateful Dead. + -- Egyptian Book of the Dead +% +In this vale +Of toil and sin +Your head grows bald +But not your chin. + -- Burma Shave +% +In Xanadu did Kubla Khan +A stately pleasure dome decree: +Where Alph, the sacred river, ran +Through caverns measureless to man +Down to a sunless sea. +So twice five miles of fertile ground +With walls and towers were girdled round: +And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills, +Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree; +And here were forest ancient as the hills, +Enfolding sunny spots of greenery. + -- S.T. Coleridge, "Kubla Kahn" +% +In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree +But only if the NFL to a franchise would agree. +% +Into love and out again, + Thus I went and thus I go. +Spare your voice, and hold your pen: + Well and bitterly I know +All the songs were ever sung, + All the words were ever said; +Could it be, when I was young, + Someone dropped me on my head? + -- Dorothy Parker, "Theory" +% +It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, +Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt. +It lies behind starts and under hills, +And empty holes it fills. +It comes first and follows after, +Ends life, kills laughter. +% +It hangs down from the chandelier +Nobody knows quite what it does +Its color is odd and its shape is weird +It emits a high-sounding buzz + +It grows a couple of feet each day +and wriggles with sort of a twitch +Nobody bugs it 'cause it comes from +a visiting uncle who's rich! + -- To "It Came Upon A Midnight Clear" +% +It happened long ago +In the new magic land +The Indians and the buffalo +Existed hand in hand +The Indians needed food +They need skins for a roof +The only took what they needed +And the buffalo ran loose +But then came the white man +With his thick and empty head +He couldn't see past his billfold +He wanted all the buffalo dead +It was sad, oh so sad. + -- Ted Nugent, "The Great White Buffalo" +% +It is not good for a man to be without knowledge, +and he who makes haste with his feet misses his way. + -- Proverbs 19:2 +% +It used to be the fun was in +The capture and kill. +In another place and time +I did it all for thrills. + -- Lust to Love +% +It was one time too many +One word too few +It was all too much for me and you +There was one way to go +Nothing more we could do +One time too many +One word too few + -- Meredith Tanner +% +It's faster horses, +Younger women, +Older whiskey and +More money. + -- Tom T. Hall, "The Secret of Life" +% +It's gonna be alright, +It's almost midnight, +And I've got two more bottles of wine. +% +It's just a jump to the left + And then a step to the right. +Put your hands on your hips + And pull your knees in tight. +It's the pelvic thrust + That really gets you insa-a-a-a-ane + + LET'S DO THE TIME WARP AGAIN! + -- Rocky Horror Picture Show +% +It's just apartment house rules, +So all you 'partment house fools +Remember: one man's ceiling is another man's floor. +One man's ceiling is another man's floor. + -- Paul Simon, "One Man's Ceiling Is Another Man's Floor" +% +It's Like This + +Even the samurai +have teddy bears, +and even the teddy bears +get drunk. +% +It's not against any religion to want to dispose of a pigeon. + -- Tom Lehrer, "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park" +% +It's so confusing choosing sides in the heat of the moment, + just to see if it's real, +Oooh, it's so erotic having you tell me how it should feel, +But I'm avoiding all the hard cold facts that I got to face, +So ask me just one question when this magic night is through, +Could it have been just anyone or did it have to be you? + -- Billy Joel, "Glass Houses" +% +John the Baptist after poisoning a thief, +Looks up at his hero, the Commander-in-Chief, +Saying tell me great leader, but please make it brief +Is there a hole for me to get sick in? +The Commander-in-Chief answers him while chasing a fly, +Saying death to all those who would whimper and cry. +And dropping a barbell he points to the sky, +Saying the sun is not yellow, it's chicken. + -- Bob Dylan, "Tombstone Blues" +% +Just a song before I go, Going through security +To whom it may concern, I held her for so long. +Traveling twice the speed of sound She finally looked at me in love, +It's easy to get burned. And she was gone. +When the shows were over Just a song before I go, +We had to get back home, A lesson to be learned. +And when we opened up the door Traveling twice the speed of sound +I had to be alone. It's easy to get burned. +She helped me with my suitcase, +She stands before my eyes, +Driving me to the airport +And to the friendly skies. + -- Crosby, Stills, Nash, "Just a Song Before I Go" +% +Just machines to make big decisions, +Programmed by men for compassion and vision, +We'll be clean when their work is done, +We'll be eternally free, yes, eternally young, +What a beautiful world this will be, +What a glorious time to be free. + -- Donald Fagon, "What A Beautiful World" +% +`Just the place for a Snark!' the Bellman cried, + As he landed his crew with care; +Supporting each man on the top of the tide + By a finger entwined in his hair. + +'Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice: + That alone should encourage the crew. +Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice: + What I tell you three times is true.' +% +`Just the place for a Snark!' the Bellman cried, + As he landed his crew with care; +Supporting each man on the top of the tide + By a finger entwined in his hair. + +`Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice: + That alone should encourage the crew. +Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice: + What I tell you three times is true.' +% +Just yesterday morning, they let me know you were gone, +Suzanne, the plans they made put an end to you, +I went out this morning and I wrote down this song, +Just can't remember who to send it to... + +Oh, I've seen fire and I've seen rain, +I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end, +I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend, +But I always thought that I'd see you again. +Thought I'd see you one more time again. + -- James Taylor, "Fire and Rain" +% +K: Cobalt's metal, hard and shining; + Cobol's wordy and confining; + KOBOLDS topple when you strike them; + Don't feel bad, it's hard to like them. + -- The Roguelet's ABC +% +Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp! cries she +With silent lips. Give me your tired, your poor, +Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, +The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. +Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me... + -- Emma Lazarus, "The New Colossus" +% +Knock Knock... (who's there?) Ether! (ether who?) Ether Bunny... Yea! +[chorus] + Yeay! + Stay on the Happy side, always on the happy side, + Stay on the Happy side of life! + Bum bum bum bum bum bum + You will feel no pain, as we drive you insane, + So Stay on the Happy Side of life! + +Knock Knock... (who's there?) Anna! (anna who?) + An another ether bunny... [chorus] +Knock Knock... (who's there?) Stilla! (stilla who?) + Still another ether bunny... [chorus] +Knock Knock... (who's there?) Yetta! (yetta who?) + Yet another ether bunny... [chorus] +Knock Knock... (who's there?) Cargo! (cargo who?) + Cargo beep beep and run over ether bunny... [chorus] +Knock Knock... (who's there?) Boo! (boo who?) + Don't Cry! Ether bunny be back next year! [chorus] +% +Ladies and Gentlemen, Hobos and Tramps, +Cross-eyed mosquitos and bowlegged ants, +I come before you to stand behind you +To tell you of something I know nothing about. +Next Thursday (which is good Friday), +There will be a convention held in the +Women's Club which is strictly for Men. +Admission is free, pay at the door, +Pull up a chair, and sit on the floor. +It was a summer's day in winter, +And the snow was raining fast, +As a barefoot boy with shoes on, +Stood sitting in the grass. +Oh, that bright day in the dead of night, +Two dead men got up to fight. +Three blind men to see fair play, +Forty mutes to yell "Hooray"! +Back to back, they faced each other, +Drew their swords and shot each other. +A deaf policeman heard the noise, +Came and arrested those two dead boys. +% +Ladles and Jellyspoons! +I come before you to stand behind you, +To tell you something I know nothing about. +Since next Thursday will be Good Friday, +There will be a fathers' meeting, for mothers only. +Wear your best clothes, if you don't have any, +And please stay at home if you can possibly be there. +Admission is free, please pay at the door. +Have a seat on me: please sit on the floor. +No matter where you manage to sit, +The man in the balcony will certainly spit. +We thank you for your unkind attention, +And would now like to present our next act: +"The Four Corners of the Round Table." +% +Lady, lady, should you meet +One whose ways are all discreet, +One who murmurs that his wife +Is the lodestar of his life, +One who keeps assuring you +That he never was untrue, +Never loved another one... +Lady, lady, better run! + -- Dorothy Parker, "Social Note" +% +Ladybug, ladybug, +Look to your stern! +Your house is on fire, +Your children will burn! +So jump ye and sing, for +The very first time +The four lines above +Have been put into rhyme. + -- Walt Kelly +% +Last night I met upon the stair +A little man who wasn't there. +He wasn't there again today. +Gee how I wish he'd go away! +% +Latin is a language, +As dead as can be. +First it killed the Romans, +And now it's killing me. +% +Let me not to the marriage of true minds +Admit impediments. Love is not love +Which alters when it alteration finds, +Or bends with the remover to remove: +O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark, +That looks on tempests and is never shaken; +It is the star to every wandering bark, +Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. +Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks +Within his bending sickle's compass come; +Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, +But bears it out even to the edge of doom. +If this be error and upon me proved, +I never writ, nor no man ever loved. +% +Let us go then you and I +while the night is laid out against the sky +like a smear of mustard on an old pork pie. + +"Nice poem Tom. I have ideas for changes though, why not come over?" + -- Ezra +% +Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, +The muttering retreats +Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels +And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: +Streets that follow like a tedious argument +Of insidious intent +To lead you to an overwhelming question... +Oh, do not ask, "What is it?" + -- T.S. Eliot, "Love song of J. Alfred Prufrock" +% +Let us treat men and women well; +Treat them as if they were real; +Perhaps they are. + -- Ralph Waldo Emerson +% +Life is like a tin of sardines. +We're, all of us, looking for the key. + -- Beyond the Fringe +% +Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans. + -- John Lennon, "Beautiful Boy" +% +Lift every voice and sing +Till earth and heaven ring, +Ring with the harmonies of Liberty; +Let our rejoicing rise +High as the listening skies, +Let it resound loud as the rolling sea. + +Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us. +Sing a song full of the hope that the present has bought us. +Facing the rising sun of our new day begun, +Let us march on till victory is won. + -- James Weldon Johnson +% +Lighten up, while you still can, +Don't even try to understand, +Just find a place to make your stand, +And take it easy. + -- The Eagles, "Take It Easy" +% +Like corn in a field I cut you down, +I threw the last punch way too hard, +After years of going steady, well, I thought it was time, +To throw in my hand for a new set of cards. +And I can't take you dancing out on the weekend, +I figured we'd painted too much of this town, +And I tried not to look as I walked to my wagon, +And I knew then I had lost what should have been found, +I knew then I had lost what should have been found. + And I feel like a bullet in the gun of Robert Ford + I'm as low as a paid assassin is + You know I'm cold as a hired sword. + I'm so ashamed we can't patch it up, + You know I can't think straight no more + You make me feel like a bullet, honey, + a bullet in the gun of Robert Ford. + -- Elton John "I Feel Like a Bullet" +% +Lisp, Lisp, Lisp Machine, +Lisp Machine is Fun. +Lisp, Lisp, Lisp Machine, +Fun for everyone. +% +Little Fly, +Thy summer's play If thought is life +My thoughtless hand And strength & breath, +Has brush'd away. And the want + Of thought is death, +Am not I +A fly like thee? Then am I +Or art not thou A happy fly +A man like me? If I live + Or if I die. + +For I dance +And drink & sing, +Till some blind hand +Shall brush my wing. + -- William Blake, "The Fly" +% +Lizzie Borden took an axe, +And plunged it deep into the VAX; +Don't you envy people who +Do all the things ___YOU want to do? +% +Logicians have but ill defined +As rational the human kind. +Logic, they say, belongs to man, +But let them prove it if they can. + -- Oliver Goldsmith +% +Louie Louie, me gotta go +Louie Louie, me gotta go + +Fine little girl she waits for me +Me catch the ship for cross the sea +Me sail the ship all alone Three nights and days me sail the sea +Me never thinks me make it home Me think of girl constantly +(chorus) On the ship I dream she there + I smell the rose in her hair +Me see Jamaica moon above (chorus, guitar solo) +It won't be long, me see my love +I take her in my arms and then +Me tell her I never leave again + -- The real words to The Kingsmen's classic "Louie Louie" +% +Love in your heart wasn't put there to stay. +Love isn't love 'til you give it away. + -- Oscar Hammerstein II +% +Love, which is quickly kindled in a gentle heart, + seized this one for the fair form + that was taken from me-and the way of it afficts me still. +Love, which absolves no loved one from loving, + seized me so strongly with delight in him, + that, as you see, it does not leave me even now. +Love brought us to one death. + -- La Divina Commedia: Inferno V, vv. 100-06 +% +Margaret, are you grieving +Over Goldengrove unleaving? +Leaves, like the things of man, +You, with your fresh thoughts +Care for, can you? +Ah! as the heart grows older +It will come to such sights colder +By and by, nor spare a sigh +Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie +And yet you will weep and know why. +Now no matter, child, the name +Sorrow's springs are the same: +It is the blight man was born for, +It is Margaret you mourn for. + -- Gerard Manley Hopkins. +% +Most folks they like the daytime, + 'cause they like to see the shining sun. +They're up in the morning, + off and a-running till they're too tired for having fun. +But when the sun goes down, + and the bright lights shine, my daytime has just begun. + +Now there are two sides to this great big world, + and one of them is always night. +If you can take care of business in the sunshine, baby, + I guess you're gonna be all right. +Don't come looking for me to lend you a hand. + My eyes just can't stand the light. + +'Cause I'm a night owl honey, sleep all day long. + -- Carly Simon +% +Mummy dust to make me old; +To shroud my clothes, the black of night; +To age my voice, an old hag's cackle; +To whiten my hair, a scream of fright; +A blast of wind to fan my hate; +A thunderbolt to mix it well -- +Now begin thy magic spell! + -- Walter Disney, "Snow White" +% +My analyst told me that I was right out of my head, + But I said, "Dear Doctor, I think that it is you instead. +Because I have got a thing that is unique and new, + To prove it I'll have the last laugh on you. +'Cause instead of one head -- I've got two. + +And you know two heads are better than one. +% +My Bonnie looked into a gas tank, +The height of its contents to see! +She lit a small match to assist her, +Oh, bring back my Bonnie to me. +% +My calculator is my shepherd, I shall not want +It maketh me accurate to ten significant figures, + and it leadeth me in scientific notation to 99 digits. +It restoreth my square roots and guideth me along paths of floating + decimal points for the sake of precision. +Yea, tho I walk through the valley of surprise quizzes, + I will fear no prof, for my calculator is there to hearten me. +It prepareth a log table to comfort me, it prepareth an + arc sin for me in the presence of my teachers. +It annoints my homework with correct solutions, my interpolations are + over. +Surely, both precision and accuracy shall follow me all the days of my + life, and I shall dwell in the house of Texas instruments forever. +% +My darling wife was always glum. +I drowned her in a cask of rum, +And so made sure that she would stay +In better spirits night and day. +% +My love runs by like a day in June, + And he makes no friends of sorrows. +He'll tread his galloping rigadoon + In the pathway or the morrows. +He'll live his days where the sunbeams start + Nor could storm or wind uproot him. +My own dear love, he is all my heart -- + And I wish somebody'd shoot him. + -- Dorothy Parker, part 3 +% +My love, he's mad, and my love, he's fleet, + And a wild young wood-thing bore him! +The ways are fair to his roaming feet, + And the skies are sunlit for him. +As sharply sweet to my heart he seems + As the fragrance of acacia. +My own dear love, he is all my dreams -- + And I wish he were in Asia. + -- Dorothy Parker, part 2 +% +My My, hey hey +Rock and roll is here to stay The king is gone but he's not forgotten +It's better to burn out This is the story of a Johnny Rotten +Than to fade away It's better to burn out than it is to rust +My my, hey hey The king is gone but he's not forgotten + +It's out of the blue and into the black Hey hey, my my +They give you this, but you pay for that Rock and roll can never die +And once you're gone you can never come back There's more to the picture +When you're out of the blue Than meets the eye +And into the black + -- Neil Young + "My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue), Rust Never Sleeps" +% +"My name is Sue! How do you do?! Now you gonna die!" +Well, I hit him hard right between the eyes, +And he went down, but to my surprise, +Come up with a knife and cut off a piece of my ear. +So I busted a chair right across his teeth, +And we crashed through the walls and into the streets, +Kickin' and a-gougin' in the mud and the blood and beer. +Now I tell you, I've fought tougher men, +But I really can't remember when: +He kicked like a mule and he bit like a crocodile. +But I heard him laugh and then I heard him cuss, +And he went for his gun, but I pulled mine first, +And he sat there lookin' at me, and I saw him smile. +He said: "Son, this world is rough, +And if a man's gonna make it he's gotta be tough, +And I knew I wouldn't be there to help you along. +So I give you that name and I said goodbye, +And I knew you'd have to get tough or die, +And it's that name that's helped to make you strong! + -- Johnny Cash, "A Boy Named Sue" +% +My own dear love, he is strong and bold + And he cares not what comes after. +His words ring sweet as a chime of gold, + And his eyes are lit with laughter. +He is jubilant as a flag unfurled -- + Oh, a girl, she'd not forget him. +My own dear love, he is all my world -- + And I wish I'd never met him. + -- Dorothy Parker, part 1 +% +My pen is at the bottom of a page, +Which, being finished, here the story ends; +'Tis to be wished it had been sooner done, +But stories somehow lengthen when begun. + -- Byron +% +My soul is crushed, my spirit sore +I do not like me anymore, +I cavil, quarrel, grumble, grouse, +I ponder on the narrow house +I shudder at the thought of men +I'm due to fall in love again. + -- Dorothy Parker, "Enough Rope" +% +Nature to all things fixed the limits fit, +And wisely curbed proud man's pretending wit. +As on the land while here the ocean gains, +In other parts it leaves wide sandy plains; +Thus in the soul while memory prevails, +The solid power of understanding fails; +Where beams of warm imagination play, +The memory's soft figures melt away. + -- Alexander Pope (on runtime bounds checking?) +% +Near the Studio Jean Cocteau +On the Rue des Ecoles +lived an old man +with a blind dog +Every evening I would see him +guiding the dog along +the sidewalk, keeping +a firm grip on the leash +so that the dog wouldn't +run into a passerby +Sometimes the dog would stop +and look up at the sky +Once the old man +noticed me watching the dog +and he said, "Oh, yes, +this one knows +when the moon is out, +he can feel it on his face" + -- Barry Gifford +% +Neuroses are red, + Melancholia's blue. +I'm schizophrenic, + What are you? +% +New York's got the ways and means; +Just won't let you be. + -- The Grateful Dead +% +New York-- to that tall skyline I come +Flyin' in from London to your door +New York-- lookin' down on Central Park +Where they say you should not wander after dark. +New York. + -- Simon and Garfunkle +% +Nine megs for the secretaries fair, +Seven megs for the hackers scarce, +Five megs for the grads in smoky lairs, +Three megs for system source; + +One disk to rule them all, +One disk to bind them, +One disk to hold the files +And in the darkness grind 'em. +% +Nine-track tapes and seven-track tapes +And tapes without any tracks; +Stretchy tapes and snarley tapes +And tapes mixed up on the racks -- + Take hold of the tape + And pull off the strip, + And then you'll be sure + Your tape drive will skip. + -- Uncle Colonel's Cursory Rhymes +% +No one likes us. +I don't know why. +We may not be perfect, We give them money, +But heaven knows we try. But are they grateful? +But all around, No, they're spiteful, +Even our old friends put us down. And they're hateful. +Let's drop the big one, They don't respect us, +And see what happens. So let's surprise them + We'll drop the big one, + And pulverize 'em. +Asia's crowded, +Europe's too old, +Africa is far too hot, We'll save Australia. +And Canada's too cold. Don't wanna hurt no kangaroos. +And South America stole our name We'll build an All-American amusement +Let's drop the big one, park there-- +There'll be no one left to blame us. They got surfin', too! + +Boom! goes London, +And Boom! Paree. +More room for you, Oh, how peaceful it'll be! +And more room for me, We'll set everybody free! +And every city, You'll wear a Japanese kimono, babe; +The whole world round, There'll be Italian shoes for me! +Will just be another American town. They all hate us anyhow, + So, let's drop the big one now. + Let's drop the big one now! + -- Randy Newman, "Drop the Big One" +% +No pig should go sky diving during monsoon +For this isn't really the norm. +But should a fat swine try to soar like a loon, +So what? Any pork in a storm. + +No pig should go sky diving during monsoon, +It's risky enough when the weather is fine. +But to have a pig soar when the monsoon doth roar +Cast even more perils before swine. +% +No plain fanfold paper could hold that fractal Puff -- +He grew so fast no plotting pack could shrink him far enough. +Compiles and simulations grew so quickly tame +And swapped out all their data space when Puff pushed his stack frame. + (refrain) +Puff, he grew so quickly, while others moved like snails +And mini-Puffs would perch themselves on his gigantic tail. +All the student hackers loved that fractal Puff +But DCS did not like Puff, and finally said, "Enough!" + (refrain) +Puff used more resources than DCS could spare. +The operator killed Puff's job -- he didn't seem to care. +A gloom fell on the hackers; it seemed to be the end, +But Puff trapped the exception, and grew from naught again! + (refrain) +Refrain: + Puff the fractal dragon was written in C, + And frolicked while processes switched in mainframe memory. + Puff the fractal dragon was written in C, + And frolicked while processes switched in mainframe memory. +% +"No program is perfect," +They said with a shrug. +"The customer's happy-- +What's one little bug?" + +But he was determined, Then change two, then three more, +The others went home. As year followed year. +He dug out the flow chart And strangers would comment, +Deserted, alone. "Is that guy still here?" + +Night passed into morning. He died at the console +The room was cluttered Of hunger and thirst +With core dumps, source listings. Next day he was buried +"I'm close," he muttered. Face down, nine edge first. + +Chain smoking, cold coffee, And his wife through her tears +Logic, deduction. Accepted his fate. +"I've got it!" he cried, Said "He's not really gone, +"Just change one instruction." He's just working late." + -- The Perfect Programmer +% +No rock so hard but that a little wave +May beat admission in a thousand years. + -- Tennyson +% +No sooner had Edger Allen Poe +Finished his old Raven, +then he started his Old Crow. +% +No, his mind is not for rent +To any god or government. +Always hopeful, yet discontent, +He knows changes aren't permanent - +But change is. +% +Nothing that's forced can ever be right, +If it doesn't come naturally, leave it. +That's what she said as she turned out the light, +And we bent our backs as slaves of the night, +Then she lowered her guard and showed me the scars +She got from trying to fight +Saying, oh, you'd better believe it. +[...] +Well nothing that's real is ever for free +And you just have to pay for it sometime. +She said it before, she said it to me, +I suppose she believed there was nothing to see, +But the same old four imaginary walls +She'd built for livin' inside +I said oh, you just can't mean it. +[...] +Well nothing that's forced can ever be right, +If it doesn't come naturally, leave it. +That's what she said as she turned out the light, +And she may have been wrong, and she may have been right, +But I woke with the frost, and noticed she'd lost +The veil that covered her eyes, +I said oh, you can leave it. + -- Al Stewart, "If It Doesn't Come Naturally, Leave It" +% +Now hatred is by far the longest pleasure; +Men love in haste, but they detest at leisure. + -- George Gordon, Lord Byron, "Don Juan" +% +Now I lay me back to sleep. +The speaker's dull; the subject's deep. +If he should stop before I wake, +Give me a nudge for goodness' sake. + -- Anonymous +% +Now I lay me down to sleep +I pray the double lock will keep; +May no brick through the window break, +And, no one rob me till I awake. +% +Now I lay me down to sleep, +I pray the Lord my soul to keep, +If I should die before I wake, +I'll cry in anguish, "Mistake!! Mistake!!" +% +Now I lay me down to study, +I pray the Lord I won't go nutty. +And if I fail to learn this junk, +I pray the Lord that I won't flunk. +But if I do, don't pity me at all, +Just lay my bones in the study hall. +Tell my teacher I've done my best, +Then pile my books upon my chest. +% +Now it's time to say goodbye +To all our company... +M-I-C (see you next week!) +K-E-Y (Why? Because we LIKE you!) +M-O-U-S-E. +% +Now let the song begin! Let us sing together +Of sun, star, moon and mist, rain and cloudy weather, +Light on the budding leag, dew on the feather, +Wind on the open hill, bells on the heather, +Reeds by the shady pool, lilies on the water: +Old Tom Bombadil and the River-daughter! + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +Now of my threescore years and ten, +Twenty will not come again, +And take from seventy springs a score, +It leaves me only fifty more. + +And since to look at things in bloom +Fifty springs are little room, +About the woodlands I will go +To see the cherry hung with snow. + -- A.E. Housman +% +Now that day wearies me, +My yearning desire +Will receive more kindly, +Like a tired child, the starry night. + +Hands, leave off your deeds, +Mind, forget all thoughts; +All of my forces +Yearn only to sink into sleep. + +And my soul, unguarded, +Would soar on widespread wings, +To live in night's magical sphere +More profoundly, more variously. + -- Hermann Hesse, "Going to Sleep" +% +Now's the time to have some big ideas +Now's the time to make some firm decisions +We saw the Buddha in a bar down south +Talking politics and nuclear fission +We see him and he's all washed up -- +Moving on into the body of a beetle +Getting ready for a long long crawl +He ain't nothing -- he ain't nothing at all... + +Death and Money make their point once more +In the shape of Philosophical assassins +Mark and Danny take the bus uptown +Deadly angels for reality and passion +Have the courage of the here and now +Don't taking nothing from the half-baked buddhas +When you think you got it paid in full +You got nothing -- you got nothing at all... + We're on the road and we're gunning for the Buddha. + We know his name and he mustn't get away. + We're on the road and we're gunning for the Buddha. + It would take one shot -- to blow him away... + -- Shriekback, "Gunning for the Buddah" +% +O give me a home, +Where the buffalo roam, +Where the deer and the antelope play, +Where seldom is heard +A discouraging word, +'Cause what can an antelope say? +% +O love, could thou and I with fate conspire +To grasp this sorry scheme of things entire, +Might we not smash it to bits +And mould it closer to our hearts' desire? + -- Omar Khayyam, tr. FitzGerald +% +O slender as a willow-wand! O clearer than clear water! +O reed by the living pool! Fair river-daughter! +O spring-time and summer-time, and spring again after! +O wind on the waterfall, and the leaves' laughter! + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +O! Wanderers in the shadowed land +despair not! For though dark they stand, +all woods there be must end at last, +and see the open sun go past: +the setting sun, the rising sun, +the day's end, or the day begun. +For east or west all woods must fail ... + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +Observe yon plumed biped fine. +To activate its captivation, +Deposit on its termination, +A quantity of particles saline. +% +Of all the words of witch's doom +There's none so bad as which and whom. +The man who kills both which and whom +Will be enshrined in our Who's Whom. + -- Fletcher Knebel +% +Oh don't the days seem lank and long + When all goes right and none goes wrong, +And isn't your life extremely flat + With nothing whatever to grumble at! +% +Oh give me your pity! +I'm on a committee, We attend and amend +Which means that from morning And contend and defend + to night, Without a conclusion in sight. + +We confer and concur, +We defer and demur, We revise the agenda +And reiterate all of our thoughts. With frequent addenda + And consider a load of reports. + +We compose and propose, +We suppose and oppose, But though various notions +And the points of procedure are fun; Are brought up as motions, + There's terribly little gets done. + +We resolve and absolve; +But we never dissolve, +Since it's out of the question for us +To bring our committee +To end like this ditty, +Which stops with a period, thus. + -- Leslie Lipson, "The Committee" +% +Oh, by the way, which one's Pink? + -- Pink Floyd +% +Oh, give me a home, +Where the buffalo roam, +And I'll show you a house with a really messy kitchen. +% +Oh, I am a C programmer and I'm okay + I muck with indices and structs all day +And when it works, I shout hoo-ray + Oh, I am a C programmer and I'm okay +% +Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth, +And danced the skies on laughter silvered wings; +Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth +Of sun-split clouds and done a hundred things +You have not dreamed of -- +Wheeled and soared and swung +High in the sunlit silence. +Hovering there +I've chased the shouting wind along and flung +My eager craft through footless halls of air. +Up, up along delirious, burning blue +I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace, +Where never lark, or even eagle flew; +And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod +The high untrespassed sanctity of space, +Put out my hand, and touched the face of God. + -- John Gillespie Magee Jr., "High Flight" +% +Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song, +A medley of extemporanea; +And love is thing that can never go wrong; +And I am Marie of Roumania. + -- Dorothy Parker, "Comment" +% +Oh, the Slithery Dee, he crawled out of the sea. +He may catch all the others, but he won't catch me. +No, he won't catch me, stupid ol' Slithery Dee. +He may catch all the others, but AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!! + -- The Smothers Brothers +% +Oh, when I was in love with you, + Then I was clean and brave, +And miles around the wonder grew + How well did I behave. + +And now the fancy passes by, + And nothing will remain, +And miles around they'll say that I + Am quite myself again. + -- A. E. Housman +% +Oh, yeah, life goes on, long after the thrill of livin' is gone. + -- John Cougar, "Jack and Diane" +% +Old Mother Hubbard lived in a shoe, +She had so many children, +She didn't know what to do. +So she moved to Atlanta. +% +Old Mother Hubbard went to the cupboard +To fetch her poor daughter a dress. +When she got there, the cupboard was bare +And so was her daughter, I guess... +% +Old Tom Bombadil is a merry fellow, +Bright blue his jacket is, and his boots are yellow. +None has ever caught him yet, for Tom, he is the master: +His songs are stronger songs, and his feet are faster. + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +On a morning from a Bogart movie, in a country where they turned back time, +You go strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre contemplating a crime. +She comes out of the sun in a silk dress running like a watercolor in the rain. +Don't bother asking for explanations, she'll just tell you that she came +In the Year of the Cat. + +She doesn't give you time for questions, as she locks up your arm in hers, +And you follow 'till your sense of which direction completely disappears. +By the blue-tiled walls near the market stall there's a hidden door she + leads you to. +These days, she say, I feel my life just like a river running through +The Year of the Cat. + +Well, she looks at you so coolly, +And her eyes shine like the moon in the sea. +She comes in incense and patchouli, +So you take her to find what's waiting inside +The Year of the Cat. + +Well, morning comes and you're still with her, but the bus and the tourists + are gone, +And you've thrown away your choice and lost your ticket, so you have to stay on. +But the drum-beat strains of the night remain in the rhythm of the new-born day. +You know some time you're bound to leave her, but for now you're going to stay +In the Year of the Cat. + -- Al Stewart, "Year of the Cat" +% +On the good ship Enterprise +Every week there's a new surprise +Where the Romulans lurk +And the Klingons often go berserk. + +Yes, the good ship Enterprise +There's excitement anywhere it flies +Where Tribbles play +And Nurse Chapel never gets her way. + + See Captain Kirk standing on the bridge, + Mr. Spock is at his side. + The weekly menace, ooh-ooh + It gets fried, scattered far and wide. + +It's the good ship Enterprise +Heading out where danger lies +And you live in dread +If you're wearing a shirt that's red. + -- Doris Robin and Karen Trimble of The L.A. Filkharmonics, + "The Good Ship Enterprise," to the tune of "The Good Ship Lollipop" +% +Once again dread deed is done. +Canon sleeps, +his all-knowing eye shaded +to human chance and circumstance. +Peace reigns anew o'er Pine Valley, +but Canon's sleep is troubled. + +Beware, scant days past the Ides of July. +Impatient hands wait eagerly +to grasp, to hold +scant moments of time +wrested from life in the full +glory of Canon's power; +held captive by his unblinking eye. + +Three golden orbs stand watch; +one each to toll the day, hour, minute +until predestiny decrees his reawakening. +When that feared moment arives, +"Ask not for whom the bell tolls, +It tolls for thee." + -- "I extended the loan on your Camera, at the Pine + Valley Pawn Shop today" +% +Once there was a little nerd who loved to read your mail, +And then yank back the i-access times to get hackers off his tail, +And once as he finished reading from the secretary's spool, +He wrote a rude rejection to her boyfriend (how uncool!) +And this as delivermail did work and he ran his backfstat, +He heard an awful crackling like rat fritters in hot fat, +And hard errors brought the system down 'fore he could even shout! + And the bio bug'll bring yours down too, ef you don't watch out! +And once they was a little flake who'd prowl through the uulog, +And when he went to his blit that night to play at being god, +The ops all heard him holler, and they to the console dashed, +But when they did a ps -ut they found the system crashed! +Oh, the wizards adb'd the dumps and did the system trace, +And worked on the file system 'til the disk head was hot paste, +But all they ever found was this: "panic: never doubt", + And the bio bug'll crash your box too, ef you don't watch out! +When the day is done and the moon comes out, +And you hear the printer whining and the rk's seems to count, +When the other desks are empty and their terminals glassy grey, +And the load is only 1.6 and you wonder if it'll stay, +You must mind the file protections and not snoop around, + Or the bio bug'll getcha and bring the system down! +% +Once upon this midnight incoherent, +While you pondered sentient and crystalline, +Over many a broken and subordinate +Volume of gnarly lore, +While I pestered, nearly singing, +Sudddenly there came a hewing, +As of someone profusely skulking, +Skulking at my chamber door. +% +One bright Sunday morning, in the shadows of the steeple, +By the Relief Office, I seen my people; +As they stood there hungry, I stood there whistling, +This land was made for you and me. + +Nobody living can ever stop me, +As I go walking that freedom highway; +Nobody living can ever make me turn back, +This land was made for you and me. + +As I went walking, I saw a sign there, +And on the sign it said: "No Trespassing." +But on the other side, it didn't say nothing, +That side was made for you and me. + -- Woody Guthrie, "This Land Is Your Land" (verses 4, 6, 7) + [If you ever wondered why Arlo was so anti-establishment when his dad + wrote such wonderful patriotic songs, the answer is that you haven't + heard all of Woody's songs] +% +One day, +A mad meta-poet, +With nothing to say, +Wrote a mad meta-poem +That started: "One day, +A mad meta-poet, +With nothing to say, +Wrote a mad meta-poem +That started: "One day, +[...] +sort of close". +Were the words that the poet, +Finally chose, +To bring his mad poem, +To some sort of close". +Were the words that the poet, +Finally chose, +To bring his mad poem, +To some sort of close". +% +One good thing about music, +Well, it helps you feel no pain. +So hit me with music; +Hit me with music now. + -- Bob Marley, "Trenchtown Rock" +% +One pill makes you larger, And if you go chasing rabbits +And one pill makes you small. And you know you're going to fall. +And the ones that mother gives you, Tell 'em a hookah smoking caterpillar +Don't do anything at all. Has given you the call. +Go ask Alice Call Alice +When she's ten feet tall. When she was just small. + +When men on the chessboard When logic and proportion +Get up and tell you where to go. Have fallen sloppy dead, +And you've just had some kind of And the White Knight is talking + mushroom backwards +And your mind is moving low. And the Red Queen's lost her head +Go ask Alice Remember what the dormouse said: +I think she'll know. Feed your head. + Feed your head. + Feed your head. + -- Jefferson Airplane, "White Rabbit" +% +One reason why George Washington +Is held in such veneration: +He never blamed his problems +On the former Administration. + -- George O. Ludcke +% +One thing about the past. +It's likely to last. + -- Ogden Nash +% +One toke over the line, sweet Mary, +One toke over the line, +Sittin' downtown in a railway station, +One toke over the line. +Waitin' for the train that goes home, +Hopin' that the train is on time, +Sittin' downtown in a railway station, +One toke over the line. +% +Other women cloy +The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry +Where most she satisfies. + -- Antony and Cleopatra +% +Our little systems have their day; +They have their day and cease to be; +They are but broken lights of thee. + -- Tennyson +% +Our sires' age was worse that our grandsires'. +We their sons are more worthless than they: +so in our turn we shall give the world a progeny yet more corrupt. + -- Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace) +% +Parsley + is gharsley. + -- Ogden Nash +% +Payeen to a Twang +Derrida +Ore-Ida +potato. + +If you dared, +I'd ask you +to go dig +up your ides under brown- +tubered skies. + +where pitchforked +you will ask +Derrida? +% +Piping down the valleys wild, +Piping songs of pleasant glee, +On a cloud I saw a child, +And he laughing said to me: +"Pipe a song about a Lamb!" +So I piped with merry cheer. +"Piper, pipe that song again;" +So I piped: he wept to hear. + -- William Blake, "Songs of Innocence" +% +Plagiarize, plagiarize, +Let no man's work evade your eyes, +Remember why the good Lord made your eyes, +Don't shade your eyes, +But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize. +Only be sure to call it research. + -- Tom Lehrer +% +Planet Claire has pink hair. +All the trees are red. +No one ever dies there. +No one has a head.... +% +Please stand for the National Anthem: + + Australians all, let us rejoice, + For we are young and free. + We've golden soil and wealth for toil + Our home is girt by sea. + Our land abounds in nature's gifts + Of beauty rich and rare. + In history's page, let every stage + Advance Australia Fair. + In joyful strains then let us sing, + Advance Australia Fair. + +Thank you. You may resume your seat. +% +Please stand for the National Anthem: + + God save our Gracious Queen! + Long live our Noble Queen! + God save the Queen! + Send her victorious, + Happy and glorious, + Long to reign o'er us! + God save the Queen! + +Thank you. You may resume your seat. +% +Please stand for the National Anthem: + + O Canada + Our home and native land + True patriot love + In all thy sons' command + With glowing hearts we see thee rise + The true north strong and free + From far and wide, O Canada + We stand on guard for thee + God keep our land glorious and free + O Canada we stand on guard for thee + O Canada we stand on guard for thee + +Thank you. You may resume your seat. +% +Please stand for the National Anthem: + + Oh, say can you see by dawn's early light + What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming? + Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight + O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming? + And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air, + Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there. + Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave + O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave? + +Thank you. You may resume your seat. +% +Power, like a desolating pestilence, +Pollutes whate'er it touches... + -- Percy Bysshe Shelley +% +Probable-Possible, my black hen, +She lays eggs in the Relative When. +She doesn't lay eggs in the Positive Now +Because she's unable to postulate How. + -- Frederick Winsor +% + Proposed Country & Western Song Titles +I Can't Get Over You, So I Get Up and Go Around to the Other Side +If You Won't Leave Me Alone, I'll Find Someone Who Will +I Knew That You'd Committed a Sin When You Came Home Late With + Your Socks Outside-in +I'm a Rabbit in the Headlights of Your Love +Don't Kick My Tires If You Ain't Gonna Take Me For a Ride +I Liked You Better Before I Knew You So Well +I Still Miss You, Baby, But My Aim's Gettin' Better +I've Got Red Eyes From Your White Lies and I'm Blue All the Time + -- "Wordplay" +% + Proposed Country & Western Song Titles +I Don't Mind If You Lie to Me, As Long As I Ain't Lyin' Alone +I Wouldn't Take You to a Dog Fight Even If I Thought You Could Win +If You Leave Me, Walk Out Backwards So I'll Think You're Comin' In +Since You Learned to Lip-Sync, I'm At Your Disposal +My John Deere Was Breaking Your Field, While Your Dear John Was + Breaking My Heart +Don't Cry, Little Darlin', You're Waterin' My Beer +Tennis Must Be Your Racket, 'Cause Love Means Nothin' to You +When You Say You Love Me, You're Full of Prunes, 'Cause Living + With You Is the Pits +I Wanted Your Hand in Marriage but All I Got Was the Finger + -- "Wordplay" +% + Proposed Country & Western Song Titles +She Ain't Much to See, but She Looks Good Through the Bottom of a Glass +If Fingerprints Showed Up On Skin, I Wonder Who's I'd Find On You +I'm Ashamed to be Here, but Not Ashamed Enough to Leave +It's Commode Huggin' Time In The Valley +If You Want to Keep the Beer Real Cold, Put It Next to My Ex-wife's Heart +If You Get the Feeling That I Don't Love You, Feel Again +I'm Ashamed To Be Here, But Not Ashamed Enough To Leave +It's the Bottle Against the Bible in the Battle For Daddy's Soul +My Wife Ran Off With My Best Friend, And I Sure Miss Him +Don't Cut Any More Wood, Baby, 'Cause I'll Be Comin' Home With A Load +I Loved Her Face, But I Left Her Behind For You +% +Put another password in, +Bomb it out, then try again. +Try to get past logging in, +We're hacking, hacking, hacking. + +Try his first wife's maiden name, +This is more than just a game. +It's real fun, but just the same, +It's hacking, hacking, hacking. + -- To the tune of "Music, Music, Music?" +% +rain falls where clouds come +sun shines where clouds go +clouds just come and go + -- Florian Gutzwiller +% +Razors pain you; + Rivers are damp. + Acids stain you, +And drugs cause cramp. + +Guns aren't lawful; + Nooses give. + Gas smells awful-- +You might as well live! + -- Dorothy Parker, "Resume", 1926 +% +Reclaimer, spare that tree! +Take not a single bit! +It used to point to me, +Now I'm protecting it. +It was the reader's CONS +That made it, paired by dot; +Now, GC, for the nonce, +Thou shalt reclaim it not. +% +Remember that whatever misfortune may be your lot, it could only be +worse in Cleveland. + -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata" +% +Remember thee +Ay, thou poor ghost while memory holds a seat +In this distracted globe. Remember thee! +Yea, from the table of my memory +I'll wipe away all trivial fond records, +All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past, +That youth and observation copied there. + -- William Shakespeare, "Hamlet" +% +Remove me from this land of slaves, +Where all are fools, and all are knaves, +Where every knave and fool is bought, +Yet kindly sells himself for nought; + -- Jonathan Swift +% +Romeo was restless, he was ready to kill, +He jumped out the window 'cause he couldn't sit still, +Juliet was waiting with a safety net, +Said "don't bury me 'cause I ain't dead yet". + -- Elvis Costello +% +Roses are red; + Violets are blue. +I'm schizophrenic, + And so am I. +% +Saturday night in Toledo Ohio, + Is like being nowhere at all, +All through the day how the hours rush by, + You sit in the park and you watch the grass die. + -- John Denver, "Saturday Night in Toledo Ohio" +% +Say it with flowers, +Or say it with mink, +But whatever you do, +Don't say it with ink! + -- Jimmie Durante +% +Say many of cameras focused t'us, +Our middle-aged shots do us justice. +No justice, please, curse ye! +We really want mercy: +You see, 'tis the justice, disgusts us. + -- Thomas H. Hildebrandt +% +Say my love is easy had, + Say I'm bitten raw with pride, +Say I am too often sad -- + Still behold me at your side. + +Say I'm neither brave nor young, + Say I woo and coddle care, +Say the devil touched my tongue -- + Still you have my heart to wear. + +But say my verses do not scan, + And I get me another man! + -- Dorothy Parker, "Fighting Words" +% +Say! You've struck a heap of trouble-- +Bust in business, lost your wife; +No one cares a cent about you, +You don't care a cent for life; +Hard luck has of hope bereft you, +Health is failing, wish you'd die-- +Why, you've still the sunshine left you +And the big blue sky. + -- R.W. Service +% +Science Fiction, Double Feature. +Frank has built and lost his creature. +Darkness has conquered Brad and Janet. +The servants gone to a distant planet. +Wo, oh, oh, oh. +At the late night, double feature, Picture show. +I want to go, oh, oh, oh. +To the late night, double feature, Picture show. + -- Rocky Horror Picture Show +% +Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art! +Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes. +Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart, +Vulture, whose wings are dull realities? +How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise? +Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering +To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies, +Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing? +Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car? +And driven the Hamadryad from the wood +To seek a shelter in some happier star? +Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood, +The Elfin from the green grass, and from me +The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree? + -- Edgar Allen Poe, "Science, a Sonnet" +% +Scintillate, scintillate, globule vivific, +Fain how I pause at your nature specific, +Loftily poised in the ether capacious, +Highly resembling a gem carbonaceous. +Scintillate, scintillate, globule vivific, +Fain how I pause at your nature specific. +% +Scratch the disks, dump the core, Shut it down, pull the plug +Roll the tapes across the floor, Give the core an extra tug +And the system is going to crash. And the system is going to crash. +Teletypes smashed to bits. Mem'ry cards, one and all, +Give the scopes some nasty hits Toss out halfway down the hall +And the system is going to crash. And the system is going to crash. +And we've also found Just flip one switch +When you turn the power down, And the lights will cease to twitch +You turn the disk readers into trash. And the tape drives will crumble + in a flash. +Oh, it's so much fun, When the CPU +Now the CPU won't run Can print nothing out but "foo," +And the system is going to crash. The system is going to crash. + -- To the tune of "As the Caissons go Rolling Along" +% +Seduced, shaggy Samson snored. +She scissored short. Sorely shorn, +Soon shackled slave, Samson sighed, +Silently scheming, +Sightlessly seeking +Some savage, spectacular suicide. + -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" +% +Seek for the Sword that was broken: +In Imladris it dwells; +There shall be counsels taken +Stronger than Morgul-spells. + +There shall be shown a token +That Doom is near at hand, +For Isildur's Bane shall waken, +And the Halfling forth shall stand. + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +She asked me, "What's your sign?" +I blinked and answered "Neon," +I thought I'd blow her mind... +% +She blinded me with science! +% +She can kill all your files; +She can freeze with a frown. +And a wave of her hand brings the whole system down. +And she works on her code until ten after three. +She lives like a bat but she's always a hacker to me. + -- Apologies to Billy Joel +% +She stood on the tracks +Waving her arms +Leading me to that third rail shock +Quick as a wink +She changed her mind + +She gave me a night +That's all it was +What will it take until I stop +Kidding myself +Wasting my time + +There's nothing else I can do +'Cause I'm doing it all for Leyna +I don't want anyone new +'Cause I'm living it all for Leyna +There's nothing in it for you +'Cause I'm giving it all to Leyna + -- Billy Joel, "All for Leyna" (Glass Houses) +% +SHIFT TO THE LEFT! +SHIFT TO THE RIGHT! +POP UP, PUSH DOWN, +BYTE, BYTE, BYTE! +% +Since I hurt my pendulum +My life is all erratic. +My parrot who was cordial +Is now transmitting static. +The carpet died, a palm collapsed, +The cat keeps doing poo. +The only thing that keeps me sane +Is talking to my shoe. + -- My Shoe +% +Sing hey! for the bath at close of day +That washes the weary mud away! +A loon is he that will not sing: +O! Water Hot is a noble thing! + + O! Sweet is the sound of falling rain, + and the brook that leaps from hill to plain; + but better than rain or rippling streams + is Water Hot that smokes and steams. + +O! Water cold we may pour at need +down a thirsty throat and be glad indeed; +but better is Beer, if drink we lack, +and Water Hot poured down the back. + + O! Water is fair that leaps on high + in a fountain white beneath the sky; + but never did fountain sound so sweet + as splashing Hot Water with my feet! + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +Snow-white! Snow-white! O Lady clear! +O Queen beyond the Western Sea! +O Light to us that wander here +Amid the world of woven trees! + + Gilthoniel! O Elbereth! + Clear are thy eyes and bright thy breath! + Snow-white! Snow-white! We sing to thee + In a far land beyond the Sea. + +O stars that in the Sunless Year +With shining hand by her were sown, +In windy fields now bright and clear +We see you silver blossom blown! + + O Elbereth! Gilthoniel! + We still remember, we who dwell + In this far land beneath the trees, + Thy starlight on the Western Seas. + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +So much +depends +upon +a red + +wheel +barrow +glazed with + +rain +water +beside +the white +chickens. + -- William Carlos Williams, "The Red Wheel Barrow" +% +So, you better watch out! +You better not cry! +You better not pout! +I'm telling you why, +Santa Claus is coming, to town. + +He knows when you've been sleeping, +He know when you're awake. +He knows if you've been bad or good, +He has ties with the CIA. +So... +% +So... so you think you can tell +Heaven from Hell? +Blue skies from pain? Did they get you to trade +Can you tell a green field Your heroes for ghosts? +From a cold steel rail? Hot ashes for trees? +A smile from a veil? Hot air for a cool breeze? +Do you think you can tell? Cold comfort for change? + Did you exchange + A walk on part in a war + For the lead role in a cage? + -- Pink Floyd, "Wish You Were Here" +% +Soldiers who wish to be a hero +Are practically zero, +But those who wish to be civilians, +They run into the millions. +% +Some of them want to use you, +Some of them want to be used by you, +...Everybody's looking for something. + -- Eurythmics +% +Some primal termite knocked on wood. +And tasted it, and found it good. +And that is why your Cousin May +Fell through the parlor floor today. + -- Ogden Nash +% +Some say the world will end in fire, +Some say in ice. +From what I've tasted of desire +I hold with those who favor fire. +But if it had to perish twice, +I think I know enough of hate +To say that for destruction, ice +Is also great +And would suffice. + -- Robert Frost, "Fire and Ice" +% +Sometimes I feel like I'm fading away, +Looking at me, I got nothin' to say. +Don't make me angry with the things games that you play, +Either light up or leave me alone. +% +Sometimes I live in the country, +And sometimes I live in town. +And sometimes I have a great notion, +To jump in the river and drown. +% +Sometimes the light's all shining on me, +Other times I can barely see. +Lately it occurs to me +What a long strange trip it's been. + -- The Grateful Dead, "American Beauty" +% +Speak roughly to your little boy, + And beat him when he sneezes: +He only does it to annoy + Because he knows it teases. + Wow! wow! wow! + +I speak severely to my boy, + And beat him when he sneezes: +For he can thoroughly enjoy + The pepper when he pleases! + Wow! wow! wow! + -- Lewis Carrol, "Alice in Wonderland" +% +Speak roughly to your little VAX, + And boot it when it crashes; +It knows that one cannot relax + Because the paging thrashes! + Wow! Wow! Wow! + +I speak severely to my VAX, + And boot it when it crashes; +In spite of all my favorite hacks + My jobs it always thrashes! + Wow! Wow! Wow! +% +Spring is here, spring is here, +Life is skittles and life is beer. +% +St. Patrick was a gentleman +who through strategy and stealth +drove all the snakes from Ireland. +Here's a toasting to his health -- +but not too many toastings +lest you lose yourself and then +forget the good St. Patrick +and see all those snakes again. +% +Stayed in bed all morning just to pass the time, +There's something wrong here, there can be no more denying, +One of us is changing, or maybe we just stopped trying, + +And it's too late, baby, now, it's too late, +Though we really did try to make it, +Something inside has died and I can't hide and I just can't fake it... + +It used to be so easy living here with you, +You were light and breezy and I knew just what to do +Now you look so unhappy and I feel like a fool. + +There'll be good times again for me and you, +But we just can't stay together, don't you feel it too? +But I'm glad for what we had and that I once loved you... + +But it's too late baby... +It's too late, now darling, it's too late... + -- Carol King, "Tapestry" +% +Step back, unbelievers! +Or the rain will never come. +Somebody keep the fire burning, someone come and beat the drum. +You may think I'm crazy, you may think that I'm insane, +But I swear to you, before this day is out, + you folks are gonna see some rain! +% +Suffering alone exists, none who suffer; +The deed there is, but no doer thereof; +Nirvana is, but no one is seeking it; +The Path there is, but none who travel it. + -- "Buddhist Symbolism", Symbols and Values +% +Sun in the night, everyone is together, +Ascending into the heavens, life is forever. + -- Brand X, "Moroccan Roll/Sun in the Night" +% +Sweet sixteen is beautiful Bess, +And her voice is changing -- from "No" to "Yes". +% +System/3! System/3! +See how it runs! See how it runs! + Its monitor loses so totally! + It runs all its programs in RPG! + It's made by our favorite monopoly! +System/3! +% +T: One big monster, he called TROLL. + He don't rock, and he don't roll; + Drink no wine, and smoke no stogies. + He just Love To Eat Them Roguies. + -- The Roguelet's ABC +% +Take a look around you, tell me what you see, +A girl who thinks she's ordinary lookin' she has got the key. +If you can get close enough to look into her eyes +There's something special right behind the bitterness she hides. + And you're fair game, + You never know what she'll decide, you're fair game, + Just relax, enjoy the ride. +Find a way to reach her, make yourself a fool, +But do it with a little class, disregard the rules. +'Cause this one knows the bottom line, couldn't get a date. +The ugly duckling striking back, and she'll decide her fate. + (chorus) +The ones you never notice are the ones you have to watch. +She's pleasant and she's friendly while she's looking at your crotch. +Try your hand at conversation, gossip is a lie, +And sure enough she'll take you home and make you wanna die. + (chorus) + -- Crosby, Stills, Nash, "Fair Game" +% +Take heart amid the deepening gloom that your dog is finally getting +enough cheese. + -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata" +% +Tan me hide when I'm dead, Fred, +Tan me hide when I'm dead. +So we tanned his hide when he died, Clyde, +It's hanging there on the shed. + +All together now... + Tie me kangaroo down, sport, + Tie me kangaroo down. + Tie me kangaroo down, sport, + Tie me kangaroo down. +% +Tell me, O Octopus, I begs, +Is those things arms, or is they legs? +I marvel at thee, Octopus; +If I were thou, I'd call me us. + -- Ogden Nash +% +Terence, this is stupid stuff: +You eat your victuals fast enough; +There can't be much amiss, 'tis clear, +To see the rate you drink your beer. +But oh, good Lord, the verse you make, +It gives a chap the belly-ache. +The cow, the old cow, she is dead; +It sleeps well the horned head: +We poor lads, 'tis our turn now +To hear such tunes as killed the cow. +Pretty friendship 'tis to rhyme +Your friends to death before their time. +Moping, melancholy mad: +Come, pipe a tune to dance to, lad. + -- A.E. Housman +% +That feeling just came over me. + -- Albert DeSalvo, the "Boston Strangler" +% +That money talks, +I'll not deny, +I heard it once, +It said "Good-bye. + -- Richard Armour +% + The Advertising Agency Song + + When your client's hopping mad, + Put his picture in the ad. + If he still should prove refractory, + Add a picture of his factory. +% +The all-softening overpowering knell, +The tocsin of the soul, -- the dinner bell. + -- Lord Byron +% +The bank called to tell me that I'm overdrawn, +Some freaks are burning crosses out on my front lawn, +And I *can't*believe* it, all the Cheetos are gone, + It's just ONE OF THOSE DAYS! + -- Weird Al Yankovic, "One of Those Days" +% +The bank sent our statement this morning, +The red ink was a sight of great awe! +Their figures and mine might have balanced, +But my wife was too quick on the draw. +% +The Bird of Time has but a little way to fly ... +and the bird is on the wing. + -- Omar Khayyam +% +The boy stood on the burning deck, +Eating peanuts by the peck. +His father called him, but he could not go, +For he loved those peanuts so. +% +The camel has a single hump; +The dromedary two; +Or else the other way around. +I'm never sure. Are you? + -- Ogden Nash +% +The carbonyl is polarized, +The delta end is plus. +The nucleophile will thus attack, +The carbon nucleus. +Addition makes an alcohol, +Of types there are but three. +It makes a bond, to correspond, +From C to shining C. + -- Prof. Frank Westheimer, to "America the Beautiful" +% +The common cormorant, or shag, +Lays eggs inside a paper bag; +The reason, you will see, no doubt, +Is to keep the lightning out. +But what these unobservant birds +Have failed to notice is that herds +Of bears may come with buns +And steal the bags to hold the crumbs. +% +The difference between us is not very far, +cruising for burgers in daddy's new car. +% +The eyes of Texas are upon you, +All the livelong day; +The eyes of Texas are upon you, +You cannot get away; +Do not think you can escape them +From night 'til early in the morn; +The eyes of Texas are upon you +'Til Gabriel blows his horn. + -- University of Texas' school song +% +The garden is in mourning; +The rain falls cool among the flowers. +Summer shivers quietly +On its way towards its end. + +Golden leaf after leaf +Falls from the tall acacia. +Summer smiles, astonished, feeble, +In this dying dream of a garden. + +For a long while, yet, in the roses, +She will linger on, yearning for peace, +And slowly +Close her weary eyes. + -- Hermann Hesse, "September" +% +The glances over cocktails +That seemed to be so sweet +Don't seem quite so amorous +Over Shredded Wheat +% +The good (I am convinced, for one) +Is but the bad one leaves undone. +Once your reputation's done +You can live a life of fun. + -- Wilhelm Busch +% +The good life was so elusive +It really got me down +I had to regain some confidence +So I got into camouflage +% +The good time is approaching, +The season is at hand. +When the merry click of the two-base lick +Will be heard throughout the land. +The frost still lingers on the earth, and +Budless are the trees. +But the merry ring of the voice of spring +Is borne upon the breeze. + -- Ode to Opening Day, "The Sporting News", 1886 +% +The grave's a fine and private place, +but none, I think, do there embrace. + -- Andrew Marvell +% +The hope that springs eternal +Springs right up your behind. + -- Ian Drury, "This Is What We Find" +% +The Junior God now heads the roll +In the list of heaven's peers; +He sits in the House of High Control, +And he regulates the spheres. +Yet does he wonder, do you suppose, +If, even in gods divine, +The best and wisest may not be those +Who have wallowed awhile with the swine? + -- Robert W. Service +% +The ladies men admire, I've heard, +Would shudder at a wicked word. +Their candle gives a single light; +They'd rather stay at home at night. +They do not keep awake till three, +Nor read erotic poetry. +They never sanction the impure, +Nor recognize an overture. +They shrink from powders and from paints... +So far, I've had no complaints. + -- Dorothy Parker +% +The leaves were long, the grass was green, +The hemlock-umbels tall and fair, +And in the glade a light was seen +Of stars in shadow shimmering. +Tin'uviel was dancing there +To music of a pipe unseen, +And light of stars was in her hair, +And in her raiment glimmering. + +There Beren came from mountains colds, +And lost he wandered under leaves, +And where the Elven-river rolled +He walked alone and sorrowing. +He peered between the hemlock-leaves +And saw in wonder flowers of gold +Upon her mantle and her sleeves, +And her hair like shadow following. + +Enchantment healed his weary feet +That over hills were doomed to roam; +And forth he hastened, strong and fleet, +And grasped at moonbeams glistening. +Through woven woods in Elvenhome +She lightly fled on dancing feet, +And left him lonely still to roam +In the silent forest listening. + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +The lights are on, +but you're not home; +Your will +is not your own; +Your heart sweats, +Your teeth grind; +Another kiss +and you'll be mine... + +You like to think that you're immune to the stuff +(Oh Yeah!) +It's closer to the truth to say you can't get enough; +You know you're gonna have to face it, +You're addicted to love!" + -- Robert Palmer +% +The little town that time forgot, +Where all the women are strong, +The men are good-looking, +And the children above-average. + -- Prairie Home Companion +% + The Lord and I are in a sheep-shepherd relationship, and I am in a position of negative need. + He prostrates me in a green-belt grazing area. + He conducts me directionally parallel to non-torrential aqueous liquid. + He returns to original satisfaction levels my psychological makeup. + He switches me on to a positive behavioral format for maximal prestige of His identity. + It should indeed be said that notwithstanding the fact that I make ambulatory progress through the umbragious inter-hill mortality slot, terror sensations will no be initiated in me, due to para-etical phenomena. + Your pastoral walking aid and quadrupic pickup unit introduce me into a pleasurific mood state. + You design and produce a nutriment-bearing furniture-type structure in the context of non-cooperative elements. + You act out a head-related folk ritual employing vegetable extract. + My beverage utensil experiences a volume crisis. + It is an ongoing deductible fact that your inter-relational empathetical and non-ventious capabilities will retain me as their target-focus for the duration of my non-death period, and I will possess tenant rights in the housing unit of the Lord on a permanent, open-ended time basis. +% +The makers may make +and the users may use, +but the fixers must fix +with but minimal clues +% +The man she had was kind and clean +And well enough for every day, +But oh, dear friends, you should have seen +The one that got away. + -- Dorothy Parker, "The Fisherwoman" +% +The morning sun when it's in your face really shows your age, +But that don't bother me none; in my eyes you're everything. +I know I keep you amused, +But I feel I'm being used. +Oh, Maggie, I wish I'd never seen your face. + +You took me away from home, +Just to save you from being alone; +You stole my heart, and that's what really hurts. + +I suppose I could collect my books and get on back to school, +Or steal my daddy's cue and make a living out of playing pool, +Or find myself a rock 'n' roll band, +That needs a helping hand, +Oh, Maggie I wish I'd never seen your face. + +You made a first-class fool out of me, +But I'm as blind as a fool can be. +You stole my soul, and that's a pain I can do without. + -- Rod Stewart, "Maggie May" +% +The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, + Moves on: nor all they Piety nor Wit +Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, + Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it. +% +The net of law is spread so wide, +No sinner from its sweep may hide. +Its meshes are so fine and strong, +They take in every child of wrong. +O wondrous web of mystery! +Big fish alone escape from thee! + -- James Jeffrey Roche +% +The night passes quickly when you're asleep +But I'm out shufflin' for something to eat +... +Breakfast at the Egg House, +Like the waffle on the griddle, +I'm burnt around the edges, +But I'm tender in the middle. + -- Adrian Belew +% +The one L lama, he's a priest +The two L llama, he's a beast +And I will bet my silk pyjama +There isn't any three L lllama. + -- O. Nash, to which a fire chief replied that occasionally + his department responded to something like a "three L lllama." +% +The Pig, if I am not mistaken, +Gives us ham and pork and Bacon. +Let others think his heart is big, +I think it stupid of the Pig. + -- Ogden Nash +% +The Poet Whose Badness Saved His Life + The most important poet in the seventeenth century was George Wither. Alexander Pope called him "wretched Wither" and Dryden said of his verse that "if they rhymed and rattled all was well". + In our own time, "The Dictionary of National Biography" notes that his work "is mainly remarkable for its mass, fluidity and flatness. It usually lacks any genuine literary quality and often sinks into imbecile doggerel". + High praise, indeed, and it may tempt you to savour a typically rewarding stanza: It is taken from "I loved a lass" and is concerned with +the higher emotions. + She would me "Honey" call, + She'd -- O she'd kiss me too. + But now alas! She's left me + Falero, lero, loo. + Among other details of his mistress which he chose to immortalize was her prudent choice of footwear. + The fives did fit her shoe. + In 1639 the great poet's life was endangered after his capture by the Royalists during the English Civil War. When Sir John Denham, the Royalist poet, heard of Wither's imminent execution, he went to the King and begged that his life be spared. When asked his reason, Sir John replied, "Because that so long as Wither lived, Denham would not be accounted the worst poet in England." + -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" +% +The Rabbits The Cow +Here is a verse about rabbits The cow is of the bovine ilk; +That doesn't mention their habits. One end is moo, the other, milk. + -- Ogden Nash +% +The rain it raineth on the just + And also on the unjust fella, +But chiefly on the just, because + The unjust steals the just's umbrella. + -- Lord Bowen +% +The rhino is a homely beast, +For human eyes he's not a feast. +Farewell, farewell, you old rhinoceros, +I'll stare at something less prepoceros. + -- Ogden Nash +% +The Road goes ever on and on +Down from the door where it began. +Now far ahead the Road has gone, +And I must follow, if I can, +Pursuing it with eager feet, +Until it joins some larger way +Where many paths and errands meet. +And whither then? I cannot say. + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +The smiling Spring comes in rejoicing, +And surly Winter grimly flies. +Now crystal clear are the falling waters, +And bonnie blue are the sunny skies. +Fresh o'er the mountains breaks forth the morning, +The ev'ning gilds the oceans's swell: +All creatures joy in the sun's returning, +And I rejoice in my bonnie Bell. + +The flowery Spring leads sunny Summer, +The yellow Autumn presses near; +Then in his turn come gloomy Winter, +Till smiling Spring again appear. +Thus seasons dancing, life advancing, +Old Time and Nature their changes tell; +But never ranging, still unchanging, +I adore my bonnie Bell. + -- Robert Burns, "My Bonnie Bell" +% +The soldier came knocking upon the queen's door. +He said, "I am not fighting for you any more." +The queen knew she had seen his face someplace before, +And slowly she let him inside. + +He said, "I see you now, and you're so very young, +But I've seen more battles lost than I have battles won, +And I have this intuition that it's all for your fun. +And now will you tell me why?" + -- Suzanne Vega, "The Queen and The Soldier" +% +The sounds of the nouns are mostly unbound. +In town a noun might wear a gown, +or further down, might dress a clown. +A noun that's sound would never clown, +but unsound nouns jump up and down. +The sound of a noun could distrub the plowing, +and then, my dear, you'd be put in the pound. +But please don't let that get you down, +the renown of your gown is the talk of the town. + -- A. Nonnie Mouse +% +The street preacher looked so baffled +When I asked him why he dressed +With forty pounds of headlines +Stapled to his chest. +But he cursed me when I proved to him +I said, "Not even you can hide. +You see, you're just like me. +I hope you're satisfied." + -- Bob Dylan +% +The sun was shining on the sea, +Shining with all his might: +He did his very best to make +The billows smooth and bright -- +And this was very odd, because it was +The middle of the night. + -- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass" +% +The Thought Police are here. They've come +To put you under cardiac arrest. +And as they drag you through the door +They tell you that you've failed the test. + -- Buggles, "Living in the Plastic Age" +% +The thrill is here, but it won't last long +You'd better have your fun before it moves along... +% +The trouble with a kitten is that +When it grows up, it's always a cat + -- Ogden Nash. +% +The trouble with you +Is the trouble with me. +Got two good eyes +But we still don't see. + -- Robert Hunter, "Workingman's Dead" +% +The truth you speak has no past and no future. +It is, and that's all it needs to be. +% +The wind doth taste so bitter sweet, + Like Jaspar wine and sugar, +It must have blown through someone's feet, + Like those of Caspar Weinberger. + -- P. Opus +% +The wombat lives across the seas, +Among the far Antipodes. +He may exist on nuts and berries, +Or then again, on missionaries; +His distant habitat precludes +Conclusive knowledge of his moods. +But I would not engage the wombat +In any form of mortal combat. + -- "The Wombat" +% +The Worst American Poet + Julia Moore, "the Sweet Singer of Michigan" (1847-1920) was so bad that Mark Twain said her first book gave him joy for 20 years. + Her verse was mainly concerned with violent death -- the great fire of Chicago and the yellow fever epidemic proved natural subjects for her pen. + Whether death was by drowning, by fits or by runaway sleigh, the formula was the same: + Have you heard of the dreadful fate + Of Mr. P.P. Bliss and wife? + Of their death I will relate, + And also others lost their life + (in the) Ashbula Bridge disaster, + Where so many people died. + Even if you started out reasonably healthy in one of Julia's poems, the chances are that after a few stanzas you would be at the bottom of a river or struck by lightning. A critic of the day said she was "worse than a Gatling gun" and in one slim volume counted 21 killed and 9 wounded. + Incredibly, some newspapers were critical of her work, even suggesting that the sweet singer was "semi-literate". Her reply was +forthright: "The Editors that has spoken in this scandalous manner have went beyond reason." She added that "literary work is very difficult to do". + -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" +% + The Worst Lines of Verse +For a start, we can rule out James Grainger's promising line: + "Come, muse, let us sing of rats." +Grainger (1721-67) did not have the courage of his convictions and deleted these words on discovering that his listeners dissolved into spontaneous laughter the instant they were read out. + No such reluctance afflicted Adam Lindsay Gordon (1833-70) who was inspired by the subject of war. + "Flash! flash! bang! bang! and we blazed away, + And the grey roof reddened and rang; + Flash! flash! and I felt his bullet flay + The tip of my ear. Flash! bang!" +By contrast, Cheshire cheese provoked John Armstrong (1709-79): + "... that which Cestria sends, tenacious paste of solid milk..." +While John Bidlake was guided by a compassion for vegetables: + "The sluggard carrot sleeps his day in bed, + The crippled pea alone that cannot stand." +George Crabbe (1754-1832) wrote: + "And I was ask'd and authorized to go + To seek the firm of Clutterbuck and Co." +William Balmford explored the possibilities of religious verse: + "So 'tis with Christians, Nature being weak + While in this world, are liable to leak." +And William Wordsworth showed that he could do it if he really tried when describing a pond: + "I've measured it from side to side; + Tis three feet long and two feet wide." + -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" +% +The young lady had an unusual list, +Linked in part to a structural weakness. +She set no preconditions. +% +The, uh, snowy mountains are like really cold, eh? +And the, um, plains stretch out like my moms girdle, eh? +There's lotsa beers and doughnuts for everyone, eh? +So the last one to be peaceful and everything is a big idiot, Eh? +So shut yer face up and dry yer mucklucks by the fire, eh? +And dream about girls with their high beams on, eh? +They may be cold, but that's okay! Beer's better that way! Eh? + -- A, like, Tribute to the Great White North, eh? +Beauty! +% +Then here's to the City of Boston, +The town of the cries and the groans. +Where the Cabots can't see the Kabotschniks, +And the Lowells won't speak to the Cohns. + -- Franklin Pierce Adams +% +There are bad times just around the corner, +There are dark clouds hurtling through the sky + And it's no good whining + About a silver lining +For we know from experience that they won't roll by... + -- Noel Coward +% +There are places I'll remember +All my life though some have changed. +Some forever not for better +Some have gone and some remain. +All these places had their moments +With lovers and friends I still recall. +Some are dead and some are living, +In my life I've loved them all. + +But of all these friends and lovers, +There is no one compared with you, +All these memories lose their meaning +When I think of love as something new. +Though I know I'll never lose affection +For people and things that went before, +I know I'll often stop and think about them +In my life I'll love you more. + -- Lennon/McCartney, "In My Life", 1965 +% +There are strange things done in the midnight sun + By the men who moil for gold; +The Arctic trails have their secret tales + That would make your blood run cold; +The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, + But the queerest they ever did see +Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge + I cremated Sam McGee. + -- Robert W. Service +% +There is in certain living souls +A quality of loneliness unspeakable, +So great it must be shared +As company is shared by lesser beings. +Such a loneliness is mine; so know by this +That in immensity +There is one lonelier than you. +% +There is no point in waiting. +The train stopped running years ago. +All the schedules, the brochures, +The bright-colored posters full of lies, +Promise rides to a distant country +That no longer exists. +% +There is something in the pang of change +More than the heart can bear, +Unhappiness remembering happiness. + -- Euripides +% +There once was a Sailor who looked through a glass +And spied a fair mermaid with scales on her... island. +Where seagulls flew over their nest. +She combed the long hair which hung over her... shoulders. +And caused her to tickle and itch. +The sailor cried out "There's a beautiful... mermaid. +A sittin' out there on the rocks." +The crew came a running, all grabbing their... glasses. +And crowded four deep to the rail. +All eager to share in this fine piece of... news. +... +"Throw out a line and we'll lasso her... flippers. +And soon we will certainly find +If mermaids are better before or be... brave +My dear fellows," The captain cried out. +And cursing with spleen. +This song may be dull, but it's certainly clean. + -- "The Clean Song", Oscar Brandt +% +There was a little girl +Who had a little curl +Right in the middle of her forehead. +When she was good, she was very, very good +And when she was bad, she was very, very popular. + -- Max Miller, "The Max Miller Blue Book" +% +There's a lesson that I need to remember +When everything is falling apart +In life, just like in loving +There's such a thing as trying to hard + +You've gotta sing +Like you don't need the money +Love like you'll never get hurt +You've gotta dance +Like nobody's watching +It's gotta come from the heart +If you want it to work. + -- Kathy Mattea +% +There's a thrill in store for all for we're about to toast +The corporation that we represent. +We're here to cheer each pioneer and also proudly boast, +Of that man of men our sterling president +The name of T.J. Watson means +A courage none can stem +And we feel honored to be here to toast the IBM. + -- Ever Onward, from the 1940 IBM Songbook +% +There's amnesia in a hangknot, +And comfort in the ax, +But the simple way of poison will make your nerves relax. + There's surcease in a gunshot, + And sleep that comes from racks, + But a handy draft of poison avoids the harshest tax. +You find rest on the hot squat, +Or gas can give you pax, +But the closest corner chemist has peace in packaged stacks. + There's refuge in the church lot + When you tire of facing facts, + And the smoothest route is poison prescribed by kindly quacks. +Chorus: With an *ugh!* and a groan, and a kick of the heels, + Death comes quiet, or it comes with squeals -- + But the pleasantest place to find your end + Is a cup of cheer from the hand of a friend. + -- Jubal Harshaw, "One For The Road" +% +They told me you had proven it When they discovered our results + About a month before. Their hair began to curl +The proof was valid, more or less Instead of understanding it + But rather less than more. We'd run the thing through PRL. + +He sent them word that we would try Don't tell a soul about all this + To pass where they had failed For it must ever be +And after we were done, to them A secret, kept from all the rest + The new proof would be mailed. Between yourself and me. + +My notion was to start again + Ignoring all they'd done +We quickly turned it into code + To see if it would run. +% +They went rushing down that freeway, +Messed around and got lost. +They didn't care... they were just dying to get off, +And it was life in the fast lane. + -- Eagles, "Life in the Fast Lane" +% +They wouldn't listen to the fact that I was a genius, +The man said "We got all that we can use", +So I've got those steadily-depressin', low-down, mind-messin', +Working-at-the-car-wash blues. + -- Jim Croce +% +Thinks't thou existence doth depend on time? +It doth; but actions are our epochs; mine +Have made my days and nights imperishable, +Endless, and all alike, as sands on the shore, +Innumerable atoms; and one desert, +Barren and cold, on which the wild waves break, +But nothing rests, save carcasses and wrecks, +Rocks, and the salt-surf weeds of bitterness. +% +"Thirty days hath Septober, +April, June, and no wonder. +all the rest have peanut butter +except my father who wears red suspenders." +% +Thirty white horses on a red hill, +First they champ, +Then they stamp, +Then they stand still. + -- Tolkien +% +This ae nighte, this ae nighte, +Everye nighte and alle, +Fire and sleet and candlelyte, +And Christe receive thy saule. + -- The Lykewake Dirge +% +This here's the wattle, +The emblem of our land. +You can stick it in a bottle; +You can hold it in your hand. +Amen! + -- Monty Python +% +This is for all ill-treated fellows + Unborn and unbegot, +For them to read when they're in trouble + And I am not. + -- A. E. Housman +% +This is the way the world ends, +This is the way the world ends, +This is the way the world ends, +Not with a bang but with a whimper. + -- T.S. Eliot, "The Hollow Men" +% +This land is my land, and only my land, +I've got a shotgun, and you ain't got one, +If you don't get off, I'll blow your head off, +This land is private property. + -- Apologies to Woody Guthrie +% +This thing all things devours: +Birds, beasts, trees, flowers; +Gnaws iron, bites steel; +Grinds hard stones to meal; +Slays king, ruins town, +And beats high mountain down. +% +Those who sweat in flames of Hell, Leaden eared, some thought their bowels +Here's the reason that they fell: Lispeth forth the sweetest vowels. +While on earth they prayed in SAS, These they offered up in praise +PL/1, or other crass, Thinking all this fetid haze +Vulgar tongue. A rapsody sung. + +Some the lord did sorely try Jabber of the mindless horde +Assembling all their pleas in hex. Sequel next did mock the lord +Speech as crabbed as devil's crable Slothful sequel so enfangled +Hex that marked on Tower Babel Its speaker's lips became entangled +The highest rung. In his bung. + +Because in life they prayed so ill +And offered god such swinish swill +Now they sweat in flames of Hell +Sweat from lack of APL +Sweat dung! +% +Though I respect that a lot +I'd be fired if that were my job +After killing Jason off and +Countless screaming argonauts + +Bluebird of friendliness +Like guardian angels it's +Always near + +Blue canary in the outlet by the light switch +Who watches over you +Make a little birdhouse in your soul +Not to put too fine a point on it +Say I'm the only bee in your bonnet +Make a little birdhouse in your soul + -- "Birdhouse in your Soul", They Might Be Giants +% +Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky, +Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone, +Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die, +One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne +In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie. +One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, +One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them +In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie. + -- J.R.R. Tolkien, "The Lord of the Rings" +% +Throw away documentation and manuals, +and users will be a hundred times happier. +Throw away privileges and quotas, +and users will do the Right Thing. +Throw away proprietary and site licenses, +and there won't be any pirating. + +If these three aren't enough, +just stay at your home directory +and let all processes take their course. +% +Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day +Fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way +Kicking around on a piece of ground in your hometown +Waiting for someone or something to show you the way + +Tired of lying in the sunshine And then one day you find +Staying home to watch the rain Ten years have got behind you +You are young and life is long No one told you when to run +And there is time to kill today You missed the starting gun + +And you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking +And racing around to come up behind you again +The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older +Shorter of breath and one day closer to death + +Every year is getting shorter Hanging on in quiet desperation + is the English way +Never seem to find the time The time is gone, the song is over +Plans that either come to nought Thought I'd something more to say... +Or half a page of scribbled lines + -- Pink Floyd, "Time" +% +Tiger got to hunt, +Bird got to fly; +Man got to sit and wonder, "Why, why, why?" + +Tiger got to sleep, +Bird got to land; +Man got to tell himself he understand. + -- The Books of Bokonon +% +Tim and I a hunting went +We found three damsels in a tent, +As they were three, and we were two, +I bucked one and Timbuktu. + -- the only known poem using the word "Timbuktu" +% +Time goes, you say? +Ah no! +Time stays, *we* go. + -- Austin Dobson +% +Time washes clean +Love's wounds unseen. +That's what someone told me; +But I don't know what it means. + -- Linda Ronstadt, "Long Long Time" +% + To A Quick Young Fox +Why jog exquisite bulk, fond crazy vamp, +Daft buxom jonquil, zephyr's gawky vice? +Guy fed by work, quiz Jove's xanthic lamp-- +Zow! Qualms by deja vu gyp fox-kin thrice. + -- Lazy Dog +% +to be nobody but yourself in a world +which is doing its best night and day +to make you like everybody else +means to fight the hardest battle +any human being can fight and +never stop fighting. + -- e.e. cummings +% +To err is human, +To purr feline. + -- Robert Byrne +% +To err is human, to purr feline. +To err is human, two curs canine. +To err is human, to moo bovine. +% +To everything there is a season, a time for every pupose under heaven: +A time to be born, and a time to die; +A time to plant, and a time to pluck what is planted; +A time to kill, and a time to heal; +A time to break down, and a time to build up; +A time to weep, and a time to laugh; +A time to mourn, and a time to dance; +A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones; +A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; +A time to gain, and a time to lose; +A time to keep, and a time to throw away; +A time to tear, and a time to sew; +A time to keep silence, and a time to speak; +A time to love, and a time to hate; +A time of war, and a time of peace. + Ecclesiastes 3:1-9 +% +To whom the mornings are like nights, +What must the midnights be! + -- Emily Dickinson (on hacking?) +% +Tobacco is a filthy weed, +That from the devil does proceed; +It drains your purse, it burns your clothes, +And makes a chimney of your nose. + -- B. Waterhouse +% +Too cool to calypso, +Too tough to tango, +Too weird to watusi + -- The Only Ones +% +Troll sat alone on his seat of stone, +And munched and mumbled a bare old bone; +For many a year he had gnawed it near, +For meat was hard to come by. + Done by! Gum by! +In a cave in the hills he dwelt alone, +And meat was hard to come by. + +Up came Tom with his big boots on. +Said he to Troll: "Pray, what is youn? +For it looks like the shin o' my nuncle Tim, +As should be a-lyin in graveyard. + Caveyard! Paveyard! +This many a year has Tim been gone, +And I thought he were lyin' in graveyard." + +"My lad," said Troll, "this bone I stole. +But what be bones that lie in a hole? +Thy nuncle was dead as a lump o' lead, +Afore I found his shinbone. + Tinbone! Thinbone! +He can spare a share for a poor old troll +For he don't need his shinbone." + +Said Tom: "I don't see why the likes o' thee +Without axin' leave should go makin' free +With the shank or the shin o' my father's kin; +So hand the old bone over! + Rover! Trover! +Though dead he be, it belongs to he; +So hand the old bnone over!" + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +Try not. +Do. +Or do not. +There is no try. +% +"Twas bergen and the eirie road +Did mahwah into patterson: "Beware the Hopatcong, my son! +All jersey were the ocean groves, The teeth that bite, the nails +And the red bank bayonne. that claw! + Beware the bound brook bird, and shun +He took his belmar blade in hand: The kearney communipaw." +Long time the folsom foe he sought +Till rested he by a bayway tree And, as in nutley thought he stood, +And stood a while in thought. The Hopatcong with eyes of flame, + Came whippany through the englewood, +One, two, one, two, and through And garfield as it came. + and through +The belmar blade went hackensack! "And hast thou slain the Hopatcong? +He left it dead and with it's head Come to my arms, my perth amboy! +He went weehawken back. Hohokus day! Soho! Rahway!" + He caldwell in his joy. +Did mahwah into patterson: +All jersey were the ocean groves, +And the red bank bayonne. + -- Paul Kieffer +% +'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves +Did gyre and gimble in the wabe. "Beware the Jabberwock, my son! +All mimsy were the borogroves The jaws that bite, the claws +And the mome raths outgrabe. that catch! + Beware the Jubjub bird, +He took his vorpal sword in hand And shun the frumious Bandersnatch!" +Long time the manxome foe he sought. +So rested he by the tumtum tree And as in uffish thought he stood +And stood awhile in thought. The Jabberwock, with eyes aflame + Came whuffling through the tulgey wood +One! Two! One! Two! And through and And burbled as it came! + through +The vorpal blade went snicker-snack. "Hast thou slain the Jabberwock? +He left it dead, and took its head, Come to my arms, my beamish boy! +And went galumphing back. Oh frabjous day! Calooh! Callay!" + He chortled in his joy. +'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves +Did gyre and gimble in the wabe. +All mimsy were the borogroves +And the mome raths outgrabe. + -- Lewis Carroll, "Jabberwocky" +% +'Twas bullig, and the slithy brokers +Did buy and gamble in the craze "Beware the Jabberstock, my son! +All rosy were the Dow Jones stokers The cost that bites, the worth +By market's wrath unphased. that falls! + Beware the Econ'mist's word, and shun +He took his forecast sword in hand: The spurious Street o' Walls!" +Long time the Boesk'some foe he sought - +Sake's liquidity, so d'vested he, And as in bearish thought he stood +And stood awhile in thought. The Jabberstock, with clothes of tweed, + Came waffling with the truth too good, +Chip Black! Chip Blue! And through And yuppied great with greed! + and through +The forecast blade went snicker-snack! "And hast thou slain the Jabberstock? +It bit the dirt, and with its shirt, Come to my firm, V.P.ish boy! +He went rebounding back. O big bucks day! Moolah! Good Play!" + He bought him a Mercedes Toy. +'Twas panic, and the slithy brokers +Did gyre and tumble in the Crash +All flimsy were the Dow Jones stokers +And mammon's wrath them bash! + -- Peter Stucki, "Jabberstocky" +% +Twas FORTRAN as the doloop goes + Did logzerneg the ifthen block +All kludgy were the function flows + And subroutines adhoc. + +Beware the runtime-bug my friend + squrooneg, the false goto +Beware the infiniteloop + And shun the inprectoo. + -- "OUTCONERR," to the scheme of "Jabberwocky" +% +'Twas midnight on the ocean, Her children all were orphans, +Not a streetcar was in sight, Except one a tiny tot, +So I stepped into a cigar store Who had a home across the way +To ask them for a light. Above a vacant lot. + +The man behind the counter As I gazed through the oaken door +Was a woman, old and gray, A whale went drifting by, +Who used to peddle doughnuts Its six legs hanging in the air, +On the road to Mandalay. So I kissed her goodbye. + +She said "Good morning, stranger", This story has a morale +Her eyes were dry with tears, As you can plainly see, +As she put her head between her feet Don't mix your gin with whiskey +And stood that way for years. On the deep and dark blue sea. + -- Midnight On The Ocean +% +'Twas midnight, and the UNIX hacks +Did gyre and gimble in their cave +All mimsy was the CS-VAX +And Cory raths outgrabe. + +"Beware the software rot, my son! +The faults that bite, the jobs that thrash! +Beware the broken pipe, and shun +The frumious system crash!" +% +'Twas the night before crisis, and all through the house, + Not a program was working not even a browse. +The programmers were wrung out too mindless to care, + Knowing chances of cutover hadn't a prayer. +The users were nestled all snug in their beds, + While visions of inquiries danced in their heads. +When out in the lobby there arose such a clatter, + I sprang from my tube to see what was the matter. +And what to my wondering eyes should appear, + But a Super Programmer, oblivious to fear. +More rapid than eagles, his programs they came, + And he whistled and shouted and called them by name; +On Update! On Add! On Inquiry! On Delete! + On Batch Jobs! On Closing! On Functions Complete! +His eyes were glazed over, his fingers were lean, + From Weekends and nights in front of a screen. +A wink of his eye, and a twist of his head, + Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread... + -- "Twas the Night before Crisis" +% +'Twas the nocturnal segment of the diurnal period + preceding the annual Yuletide celebration, And + throughout our place of residence, +Kinetic activity was not in evidence among the + possessors of this potential, including that + species of domestic rodent known as Mus musculus. +Hosiery was meticulously suspended from the forward + edge of the woodburning caloric apparatus, +Pursuant to our anticipatory pleasure regarding an + imminent visitation from an eccentric + philanthropist among whose folkloric appelations + is the honorific title of St. Nicklaus ... +% +Twenty two thousand days. +Twenty two thousand days. +It's not a lot. +It's all you've got. +Twenty two thousand days. + -- Moody Blues, "Twenty Two Thousand Days" +% + Two men looked out from the prison bars, + One saw mud-- + The other saw stars. + +Now let me get this right: two prisoners are looking out the window. +While one of them was looking at all the mud -- the other one got hit +in the head. +% +Tyger, Tyger, burning bright Where the hammer? Where the chain? +In the forests of the night, In what furnace was thy brain? +What immortal hand or eye What the anvil? What dread grasp +Dare frame thy fearful symmetry? Dare its deadly terrors clasp? + +Burnt in distant deeps or skies When the stars threw down their spears +The cruel fire of thine eyes? And water'd heaven with their tears +On what wings dare he aspire? Dare he laugh his work to see? +What the hand dare seize the fire? Dare he who made the lamb make thee? + +And what shoulder & what art Tyger, Tyger, burning bright +Could twist the sinews of they heart? In the forests of the night, +And when thy heart began to beat What immortal hand or eye +What dread hand & what dread feet Dare frame thy fearful symmetry? + +Could fetch it from the furnace deep +And in thy horrid ribs dare steep +In the well of sanguine woe? +In what clay & in what mould +Were thy eyes of fury roll'd? + -- William Blake, "The Tyger" +% +U: There's a U -- a Unicorn! + Run right up and rub its horn. + Look at all those points you're losing! + UMBER HULKS are so confusing. + -- The Roguelet's ABC +% +Under the wide and heavy VAX +Dig my grave and let me relax +Long have I lived, and many my hacks +And I lay me down with a will. +These be the words that tell the way: +"Here he lies who piped 64K, +Brought down the machine for nearly a day, +And Rogue playing to an awful standstill." +% +Under the wide and starry sky, +Dig my grave and let me lie, +Glad did I live and gladly die, +And laid me down with a will, +And this be the verse that you grave for me, +Here he lies where he longed to be, +Home is the sailor home from the sea, +And the hunter home from the hill. + -- R. Kipling +% +Upon the hearth the fire is red, +Beneath the roof there is a bed; +But not yet weary are our feet, +Still round the corner we may meet +A sudden tree or standing stone +That none have seen but we alone. Still round the corner there may wait + Tree and flower and leaf and grass, A new road or a secret gate, + Let them pass! Let them pass! And though we pass them by today + Hill and water under sky, Tomorrow we may come this way + Pass them by! Pass them by! And take the hidden paths that run + Towards the Moon or to the Sun, +Home is behind, the world ahead, Apple, thorn, and nut and sloe, +And there are many paths to tread Let them go! Let them go! +Through shadows to the edge of night, Sand and stone and pool and dell, +Until the stars are all alight. Fare you well! Fare you well! +Then world behind and home ahead, +We'll wander back to home and bed. + Mist and twilight, cloud and shade, + Away shall fade! Away shall fade! + Fire and lamp, and meat and bread, + And then to bed! And then to bed! + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +Voicless it cries, +Wingless flutters, +Toothless bites, +Mouthless mutters. +% +Volcanoes have a grandeur that is grim +And earthquakes only terrify the dolts, +And to him who's scientific +There is nothing that's terrific +In the pattern of a flight of thunderbolts! + -- W.S. Gilbert, "The Mikado" +% +Wad some power the giftie gie us +To see oursels as others see us. + -- R. Browning +% +Wake now my merry lads! Wake and hear me calling! +Warm now be heart and limb! The cold stone is fallen; +Dark door is standing wide; dead hand is broken. +Night under Night is flown, and the Gate is open! + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +Wake up all you citizens, hear your country's call, +Not to arms and violence, But peace for one and all. +Crush out hate and prejudice, fear and greed and sin, +Help bring back her dignity, restore her faith again. + +Work hard for a common cause, don't let our country fall. +Make her proud and strong again, democracy for all. +Yes, make our country strong again, keep our flag unfurled. +Make our country well again, respected by the world. + +Make her whole and beautiful, work from sun to sun. +Stand tall and labor side by side, because there's so much to be done. +Yes, make her whole and beautiful, united strong and free, +Wake up, all you citizens, It's up to you and me. + -- Pansy Myers Schroeder +% +Wanna tell you all a story 'bout a man named Jed, +A poor mountaineer, barely kept his family fed. +But then one day he was shootin' at some food, +When up through the ground come a bubblin' crude -- oil, that is; + black gold; 'Texas tea' ... + +Well the next thing ya know, old Jed's a millionaire. +The kinfolk said, 'Jed, move away from there!' +They said, 'Californy is the place ya oughta be', +So they loaded up the truck and they moved to Beverly -- Hills, that is; + swimmin' pools; movie stars. +% +Was there a time when dancers with their fiddles +In children's circuses could stay their troubles? +There was a time they could cry over books, +But time has set its maggot on their track. +Under the arc of the sky they are unsafe. +What's never known is safest in this life. +Under the skysigns they who have no arms +Have cleanest hands, and, as the heartless ghost +Alone's unhurt, so the blind man sees best. + -- Dylan Thomas, "Was There A Time" +% +We don't need no education, we don't need no thought control. + -- Pink Floyd +% +We don't need no indirection We don't need no compilation +We don't need no flow control We don't need no load control +No data typing or declarations No link edit for external bindings +Hey! did you leave the lists alone? Hey! did you leave that source alone? +Chorus: (Chorus) + Oh No. It's just a pure LISP function call. + +We don't need no side-effecting We don't need no allocation +We don't need no flow control We don't need no special-nodes +No global variables for execution No dark bit-flipping for debugging +Hey! did you leave the args alone? Hey! did you leave those bits alone? +(Chorus) (Chorus) + -- "Another Glitch in the Call", a la Pink Floyd +% +We gotta get out of this place, +If it's the last thing we ever do. + -- The Animals +% +we will invent new lullabies, new songs, new acts of love, +we will cry over things we used to laugh & +our new wisdom will bring tears to eyes of gentle +creatures from other planets who were afraid of us till then & +in the end a summer with wild winds & +new friends will be. +% +We wish you a Hare Krishna +We wish you a Hare Krishna +We wish you a Hare Krishna +And a Sun Myung Moon! + -- Maxwell Smart +% +We're happy little Vegemites, + As bright as bright can be. +We all all enjoy our Vegemite + For breakfast, lunch and tea. +% +We're Knights of the Round Table +We dance whene'er we're able +We do routines and chorus scenes We're knights of the Round Table +With footwork impeccable Our shows are formidable +We dine well here in Camelot But many times +We eat ham and jam and Spam a lot. We're given rhymes + That are quite unsingable +In war we're tough and able, We're opera mad in Camelot +Quite indefatigable We sing from the diaphragm a lot. +Between our quests +We sequin vests +And impersonate Clark Gable +It's a busy life in Camelot. +I have to push the pram a lot. + -- Monty Python +% +We've tried each spinning space mote +And reckoned its true worth: +Take us back again to the homes of men +On the cool, green hills of Earth. + +The arching sky is calling +Spacemen back to their trade. +All hands! Standby! Free falling! +And the lights below us fade. +Out ride the sons of Terra, +Far drives the thundering jet, +Up leaps the race of Earthmen, +Out, far, and onward yet-- + +We pray for one last landing +On the globe that gave us birth; +Let us rest our eyes on the fleecy skies +And the cool, green hills of Earth. + -- Robert A. Heinlein, 1941 +% +Welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends! +We're so glad you could attend, come inside, come inside! +There behind the glass there's a real blade of grass, +Be careful as you pass, move along, move along. +Come inside, the show's about to start, +Guaranteed to blow your head apart. +Rest assured, you'll get your money's worth, +Greatest show, in Heaven, Hell or Earth! +You gotta see the show! It's a dynamo! +You gotta see the show! It's rock 'n' roll! + -- ELP, "Karn Evil 9" (1st Impression, Part 2) +% +Well I looked at my watch and it said a quarter to five, +The headline screamed that I was still alive, +I couldn't understand it, I thought I died last night. +I dreamed I'd been in a border town, +In a little cantina that the boys had found, +I was desperate to dance, just to dig the local sounds. +When along came a senorita, +She looked so good that I had to meet her, +I was ready to approach her with my English charm, +When her brass knuckled boyfriend grabbed me by the arm, +And he said, grow some funk of your own, amigo, +Grow some funk of your own. +We no like to with the gringo fight, +But there might be a death in Mexico tonite. +... +Take my advice, take the next flight, +And grow some funk, grow your funk at home. + -- Elton John, "Grow Some Funk of Your Own" +% +Well, fancy giving money to the Government! +Might as well have put it down the drain. +Fancy giving money to the Government! +Nobody will see the stuff again. +Well, they've no idea what money's for -- +Ten to one they'll start another war. +I've heard a lot of silly things, but, Lor'! +Fancy giving money to the Government! + -- A.P. Herbert +% +Well, I don't know where they come from but they sure do come, +I hope they comin' for me! +And I don't know how they do it but they sure do it good, +I hope they doin' it for free! +They give me cat scratch fever... cat scratch fever! +First time that I got it I was just ten years old, +Got it from the kitty next door... +I went to see the doctor and he gave me the cure, +I think I got it some more! +Got a bad scratch fever... + -- Ted Nugent, "Cat Scratch Fever" +% +Well, my daddy left home when I was three, +And he didn't leave much for Ma and me, +Just and old guitar an'a empty bottle of booze. +Now I don't blame him 'cause he ran and hid, +But the meanest thing that he ever did, +Was before he left he went and named me Sue. +... +But I made me a vow to the moon and the stars, +I'd search the honkey tonks and the bars, +And kill the man that give me that awful name. +It was Gatlinburg in mid-July, +I'd just hit town and my throat was dry, +Thought I'd stop and have myself a brew, +At an old saloon on a street of mud, +Sitting at a table, dealing stud, +Sat that dirty (bleep) that named me Sue. +... +Now, I knew that snake was my own sweet Dad, +From a wornout picture that my Mother had, +And I knew that scar on his cheek and his evil eye... + -- Johnny Cash, "A Boy Named Sue" +% +Well, my terminal's locked up, and I ain't got any Mail, + And I can't recall the last time that my program didn't fail; +I've got stacks in my structs, I've got arrays in my queues, + I've got the : Segmentation violation -- Core dumped blues. + +If you think that it's nice that you get what you C, + Then go : illogical statement with your whole family, +'Cause the Supreme Court ain't the only place with : Bus error views. + I've got the : Segmentation violation -- Core dumped blues. + +On a PDP-11, life should be a breeze, + But with VAXen in the house even magnetic tapes would freeze. +Now you might think that unlike VAXen I'd know who I abuse, + I've got the : Segmentation violation -- Core dumped blues. + -- Core Dumped Blues +% +Well, some take delight in the carriages a-rolling, +And some take delight in the hurling and the bowling, +But I take delight in the juice of the barley, +And courting pretty fair maids in the morning bright and early. +% +Well, we're big rock singers, we've got golden fingers, +And we're loved everywhere we go. +We sing about beauty, and we sing about truth, +At ten thousand dollars a show. +We take all kind of pills to give us all kind of thrills, +But the thrill we've never known, +Is the thrill that'll get'cha, when you get your picture, +On the cover of the Rolling Stone. + +I got a freaky old lady, name of Cole King Katie, +Who embroiders on my jeans. +I got my poor old gray-haired daddy, +Drivin' my limousine. +Now it's all designed, to blow our minds, +But our minds won't be really be blown; +Like the blow that'll get'cha, when you get your picture, +On the cover of the Rolling Stone. + +We got a lot of little, teen-aged, blue-eyed groupies, +Who'll do anything we say. +We got a genuine Indian guru, that's teachin' us a better way. +We got all the friends that money can buy, +So we never have to be alone. +And we keep gettin' richer, but we can't get our picture, +On the cover of the Rolling Stone. + -- Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show + [As a note, they eventually DID make the cover of RS. Ed.] +% +What awful irony is this? +We are as gods, but know it not. +% +What did ya do with your burden and your cross? +Did you carry it yourself or did you cry? +You and I know that a burden and a cross, +Can only be carried on one man's back. + -- Louden Wainwright III +% +What happens to a dream deferred? +Does it dry up +Like a raisin in the sun? +Or fester like a sore -- +And then run? +Does it stink like rotten meat? +Or crust and sugar over -- +Like a syrupy sweet? + +Maybe it just sags +Like a heavy load. + +Or does it explode? + -- Langston Hughes +% +What has roots as nobody sees, +Is taller than trees, +Up, up it goes, +And yet never grows? +% +What pains others pleasures me, +At home am I in Lisp or C; +There i couch in ecstasy, +'Til debugger's poke i flee, +Into kernel memory. +In system space, system space, there shall i fare-- +Inside of a VAX on a silicon square. +% +What segment's this, that, laid to rest +On FHA0, is sleeping? +What system file, lay here a while This, this is "acct.run," +While hackers around it were weeping? Accounting file for everyone. + Dump, dump it and type it out, + The file, the highseg of login. +Why lies it here, on public disk +And why is it now unprotected? +A bug in incant, made it thus. Mount, mount all your DECtapes now +And copy the file somehow, somehow. The problem has not been corrected. + Dump, dump it and type it out, + The file, the highseg of login. + -- to Greensleeves +% +What we Are is God's gift to us. +What we Become is our gift to God. +% +What's love but a second-hand emotion? + -- Tina Turner +% +What, still alive at twenty-two, +A clean upstanding chap like you? +Sure, if your throat 'tis hard to slit, +Slit your girl's, and swing for it. +Like enough, you won't be glad, +When they come to hang you, lad: +But bacon's not the only thing +That's cured by hanging from a string. +So, when the spilt ink of the night +Spreads o'er the blotting pad of light, +Lads whose job is still to do +Shall whet their knives, and think of you. + -- Hugh Kingsmill +% +When a lion meets another with a louder roar, +the first lion thinks the last a bore. + -- G.B. Shaw +% +When I think about myself, +I almost laugh myself to death, +My life has been one great big joke, Sixty years in these folks' world +A dance that's walked The child I works for calls me girl +A song that's spoke, I say "Yes ma'am" for working's sake. +I laugh so hard I almost choke Too proud to bend +When I think about myself. Too poor to break, + I laugh until my stomach ache, + When I think about myself. +My folks can make me split my side, +I laughed so hard I nearly died, +The tales they tell, sound just like lying, +They grow the fruit, +But eat the rind, +I laugh until I start to crying, +When I think about my folks. + -- Maya Angelou +% +When in panic, fear and doubt, +Drink in barrels, eat, and shout. +% +When in this world the headlines read +Of those whose hearts are filled with greed +Who rob and steal from those who need +The cry goes up with blinding speed for Underdog (UNDERDOG!) +Underdog (UNDERDOG!) +Speed of lightning, roar of thunder +Fighting all who rob or plunder +Underdog (ah-ah-ah-ah) +Underdog +UNDERDOG! +% +When in trouble or in doubt, +run in circles, scream and shout. +% +When license fees are too high, +users do things by hand. +When the management is too intrusive, +users lose their spirit. + +Hack for the user's benefit. +Trust them; leave them alone. +% +When love is gone, there's always justice. +And when justice is gone, there's always force. +And when force is gone, there's always Mom. +Hi, Mom! + -- Laurie Anderson +% +When my fist clenches crack it open, +Before I use it and lose my cool. +When I smile tell me some bad news, +Before I laugh and act like a fool. + +And if I swallow anything evil, +Put you finger down my throat. +And if I shiver please give me a blanket, +Keep me warm let me wear your coat + +No one knows what it's like to be the bad man, + to be the sad man. +Behind blue eyes. +No one knows what its like to be hated, + to be fated, +To telling only lies. + -- The Who +% +When oxygen Tech played Hydrogen U. +The Game had just begun, when Hydrogen scored two fast points +And Oxygen still had none +Then Oxygen scored a single goal +And thus it did remain, At Hydrogen 2 and Oxygen 1 +Called because of rain. +% +When someone makes a move We'll send them all we've got, +Of which we don't approve, John Wayne and Randolph Scott, +Who is it that always intervenes? Remember those exciting fighting scenes? +U.N. and O.A.S., To the shores of Tripoli, +They have their place, I guess, But not to Mississippoli, +But first, send the Marines! What do we do? We send the Marines! + +For might makes right, Members of the corps +And till they've seen the light, All hate the thought of war: +They've got to be protected, They'd rather kill them off by + peaceful means. +All their rights respected, Stop calling it aggression-- +Till somebody we like can be elected. We hate that expression! + We only want the world to know + That we support the status quo; + They love us everywhere we go, + So when in doubt, send the Marines! + -- Tom Lehrer, "Send The Marines" +% +When the Guru administers, the users +are hardly aware that he exists. +Next best is a sysop who is loved. +Next, one who is feared. +And worst, one who is despised. + +If you don't trust the users, +you make them untrustworthy. + +The Guru doesn't talk, he hacks. +When his work is done, +the users say, "Amazing: +we implemented it, all by ourselves!" +% +When the leaders speak of peace +The common folk know +That war is coming +When the leaders curse war +The mobilization order is already written out. + +Every day, to earn my daily bread +I go to the market where lies are bought +Hopefully +I take my place among the sellers. + -- Bertolt Brecht, "Hollywood" +% +When users see one GUI as beautiful, +other user interfaces become ugly. +When users see some programs as winners, +other programs become lossage. + +Pointers and NULLs reference each other. +High level and assembler depend on each other. +Double and float cast to each other. +High-endian and low-endian define each other. +While and until follow each other. + +Therefore the Guru +programs without doing anything +and teaches without saying anything. +Warnings arise and he lets them come; +processes are swapped and he lets them go. +He has but doesn't possess, +acts but doesn't expect. +When his work is done, he deletes it. +That is why it lasts forever. +% +When you and I are far apart +Can sorrow break your tender heart? +I love you darling, yes I do; +Sleep is so sweet when I dream of you; +All you are is a blossoming rose. +Night is here so I must close. +With care read the first word of each line. +You will find a question of mine. + -- Yours hopefully, The VAX. +% +When you find yourself in danger, +When you're threatened by a stranger, +When it looks like you will take a lickin'... + +There is one thing you should learn, +When there is no one else to turn to, + Caaaall for Super Chicken!! (**bwuck-bwuck-bwuck-bwuck**) + Caaaall for Super Chicken!! +% +When you get what you want in your struggle for self +And the world makes you king for a day, +Just go to a mirror and look at yourself +And see what that man has to say. + For it isn't your father or mother or wife + Whose judgement upon you must pass; + The fellow whose verdict counts most in your life + Is the one staring back from the glass. +Some people may think you a straight-shootin' chum +And call you a wonderful guy, +But the man in the glass says you're only a bum +If you can't look him straight in the eye. + He's the fellow to please, never mind all the rest, + For he's with you clear up to the end, + And you've passed your most dangerous, difficult test + If the man in the glass is your friend. +You may fool the whole world down the pathway of life +And get pats on the back as you pass, +But your final reward will be heartaches and tears +If you've cheated the man in the glass. +% +When you meet a master swordsman, +show him your sword. +When you meet a man who is not a poet, +do not show him your poem. + -- Rinzai, ninth century Zen master +% +When you overesteem great hackers, +more users become cretins. +When you develop encryption, +more users become crackers. + +The Guru leads +by emptying user's minds +and increasing their quotas, +by weakening their ambition +and toughening their resolve. +When users lack knowledge and desire, +management will not try to interfere. + +Practice not-looping, +and everything will fall into place. +% +When you're a Yup +You're a Yup all the way +From your first slice of Brie +To your last Cabernet. + +When you're a Yup +You're not just a dreamer +You're making things happen +You're driving a Beamer. +% +When you're away, I'm restless, lonely, +Wretched, bored, dejected; only +Here's the rub, my darling dear +I feel the same when you are near. + -- Samuel Hoffenstein, "When You're Away" +% +Whenever Richard Cory went downtown, + We people on the pavement looked at him: +He was a gentleman from sole to crown, + Clean-favored, and imperially slim. +And he was always quietly arrayed, + And he was always human when he talked; +But still he fluttered pulses when he said, + "Good morning," and he glittered when he walked. +And he was rich -- yes, richer than a king -- + And admirably schooled in every grace: +In fine, we thought that he was everything + To make us wish that we were in his place. +So on we worked, and waited for the light, + And went without the meat, and cursed the bread; +And Richard Cory, one calm summer night, + Went home and put a bullet through his head. + -- E.A. Robinson, "Richard Cory" +% +WHERE CAN THE MATTER BE + Oh, dear, where can the matter be + When it's converted to energy? + There is a slight loss of parity. + Johnny's so long at the fair. +% +Where's the man could ease a heart +Like a satin gown? + -- Dorothy Parker, "The Satin Dress" +% +Where, oh, where, are you tonight? +Why did you leave me here all alone? +I searched the world over, and I thought I'd found true love. +You met another, and *PPHHHLLLBBBBTTT*, you wuz gone. + +Gloom, despair and agony on me. +Deep dark depression, excessive misery. +If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all. +Oh, gloom, despair and agony on me. + -- Hee Haw +% +Whether weary or unweary, O man, do not rest, +Do not cease your single-handed struggle. +Go on, do not rest. + -- An old Gujarati hymn +% +Whether you can hear it or not, +The Universe is laughing behind your back. + -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata" +% +While Europe's eye is fix'd on mighty things, +The fate of empires and the fall of kings; +While quacks of State must each produce his plan, +And even children lisp the Rights of Man; +Amid this mighty fuss just let me mention, +The Rights of Woman merit some attention. + -- Robert Burns, Address on "The Rights of Woman", 26/10 1792 +% +While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, +As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. + -- Edgar Allan Poe, "The Raven" + + [Quoted in "VMS Internals and Data Structures", V4.4, when + referring to hardware interrupts.] + +And now I see with eye serene +The very pulse of the machine. + -- William Wordsworth, "She Was a Phantom of Delight" + + [Quoted in "VMS Internals and Data Structures", V4.4, when + referring to software interrupts.] +% +While walking down a crowded +City street the other day, +I heard a little urchin +To a comrade turn and say, +"Say, Chimmey, lemme tell youse, +I'd be happy as a clam +If only I was de feller dat +Me mudder t'inks I am. + +"She t'inks I am a wonder, My friends, be yours a life of toil +An' she knows her little lad Or undiluted joy, +Could never mix wit' nuttin' You can learn a wholesome lesson +Dat was ugly, mean or bad. From that small, untutored boy. +Oh, lot o' times I sit and t'ink Don't aim to be an earthly saint +How nice, 'twould be, gee whiz! With eyes fixed on a star: +If a feller was de feller Just try to be the fellow that +Dat his mudder t'inks he is." Your mother thinks you are. + -- Will S. Adkin, "If I Only Was the Fellow" +% +Whip it, baby. +Whip it right. +Whip it, baby. +Whip it all night! +% +Who does not love wine, women, and song, +Remains a fool his whole life long. + -- Johann Heinrich Voss +% +Who to himself is law no law doth need, +offends no law, and is a king indeed. + -- George Chapman +% +Why are you watching +The washing machine? +I love entertainment +So long as it's clean. + +Professor Doberman: + While the preceding poem is unarguably a change from the guarded +pessimism of "The Hound of Heaven," it cannot be regarded as an unqualified +improvement. Obscurity is of value only when it tends to clarify the poetic +experience. As much as one is compelled to admire the poem's technique, one +must question whether its byplay of complex literary allusions does not in +fact distract from the unity of the whole. In the final analysis, one +receives the distinct impression that the poem's length could safely have +been reduced by a factor of eight or ten without sacrificing any of its +meaning. It is to be hoped that further publication of this poem can be +suspended pending a thorough investigation of its potential subversive +implications. +% +With/Without - and who'll deny it's what the fighting's all about? + -- Pink Floyd +% +Woke up this mornin' an' I had myself a beer, +Yeah, Ah woke up this mornin' an' I had myself a beer +The future's uncertain and the end is always near. + -- Jim Morrison, "Roadhouse Blues" +% +Woke up this morning, don't believe what I saw. +Hundred billion bottles washed up on the shore. +Seems I'm not alone in being alone. +Hundred billion castaways looking for a call. + -- The Police, "Message in a Bottle" +% +Yea from the table of my memory +I'll wipe away all trivial fond records. + -- Hamlet +% +Yes me, I got a bottle in front of me. +And Jimmy has a frontal lobotomy. +Just different ways to kill the pain the same. +But I'd rather have a bottle in front of me, +Than to have to have a frontal lobotomy. +I might be drunk but at least I'm not insane. + -- Randy Ansley M.D. (Dr. Rock) +% +Yesterday upon the stair +I met a man who wasn't there. +He wasn't there again today -- +I think he's from the CIA. +% +"You are old, Father William," the young man said, + "All your papers these days look the same; +Those William's would be better unread -- + Do these facts never fill you with shame?" + +"In my youth," Father William replied to his son, + "I wrote wonderful papers galore; +But the great reputation I found that I'd won, + Made it pointless to think any more." +% +"You are old, father William," the young man said, + "And your hair has become very white; +And yet you incessantly stand on your head -- + Do you think, at your age, it is right?" + +"In my youth," father William replied to his son, + "I feared it might injure the brain; +But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none, + Why, I do it again and again." + +"You are old," said the youth, "as I mentioned before, + And have grown most uncommonly fat; +Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door -- + Pray what is the reason of that?" + +"In my youth," said the sage, as he shook his grey locks, + "I kept all my limbs very supple +By the use of this ointment -- one shilling the box -- + Allow me to sell you a couple?" +% +"You are old," said the youth, "and I'm told by my peers + That your lectures bore people to death. +Yet you talk at one hundred conventions per year -- + Don't you think that you should save your breath?" + +"I have answered three questions and that is enough," + Said his father, "Don't give yourself airs! +Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff? + Be off, or I'll kick you downstairs!" +% +"You are old," said the youth, "and your jaws are too weak + For anything tougher than suet; +Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak -- + Pray, how did you manage to do it?" + +"In my youth," said his father, "I took to the law, + And argued each case with my wife; +And the muscular strength which it gave to my jaw, + Has lasted the rest of my life." + +"You are old," said the youth, "one would hardly suppose + That your eye was as steady as ever; +Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose -- + What made you so awfully clever?" + +"I have answered three questions, and that is enough," + Said his father. "Don't give yourself airs! +Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff? + Be off, or I'll kick you down stairs!" +% +"You are old," said the youth, "and your programs don't run, + And there isn't one language you like; +Yet of useful suggestions for help you have none -- + Have you thought about taking a hike?" + +"Since I never write programs," his father replied, + "Every language looks equally bad; +Yet the people keep paying to read all my books + And don't realize that they've been had." +% +"You are old," said the youth, "as I mentioned before, + And make errors few people could bear; +You complain about everyone's English but yours -- + Do you really think this is quite fair?" + +"I make lots of mistakes," Father William declared, + "But my stature these days is so great +That no critic can hurt me -- I've got them all scared, + And to stop me it's now far too late." +% +You can grovel with a lover, you can grovel with a friend, +You can grovel with your boss, and it never has to end. + +(chorus) Grovel, grovel, grovel, every night and every day, + Grovel, grovel, grovel, in your own peculiar way. + +You can grovel in a hallway, you can grovel in a park, +You can grovel in an alley with a mugger after dark. +(chorus) + +You can grovel with your uncle, you can grovel with your aunt, +You can grovel with your Apple, even though you say you can't. +(chorus) +% +You go down to the pickup station, + craving warmth and beauty; +You settle for less than fascination -- + a few drinks later you're not so choosy. +And the closing lights strip off the shadows + on this strange new flesh you've found -- +Clutching the night to you like a fig leaf + you hurry to the blackness + and the blankets to lay down an impression + and your loneliness. + -- Joni Mitchell +% +You got to pay your dues if you want to sing the blues, +And you know it don't come easy ... +I don't ask for much, I only want trust, +And you know it don't come easy ... +% +You know my heart keeps tellin' me, +You're not a kid at thirty-three, +You play around you lose your wife, +You play too long, you lose your life. +Some gotta win, some gotta lose, +Goodtime Charlie's got the blues. +% +You may be right, I may be crazy, +But it just may be a lunatic you're looking for! + -- Billy Joel +% +You will find me drinking gin +In the lowest kind of inn, +Because I am a rigid Vegetarian. + -- G.K. Chesterton +% +You'll always be, +What you always were, +Which has nothing to do with, +All to do, with her. + -- Company +% +Your wise men don't know how it feels +To be thick as a brick. + -- Jethro Tull, "Thick As A Brick" +% +Your worship is your furnaces +which, like old idols, lost obscenes, +have molten bowels; your vision is +machines for making more machines. + -- Gordon Bottomley, 1874 +% +Yours is not to reason why, +Just to Sail Away. +And when you find you have to throw +Your Legacy away; +Remember life as was it is, +And is as it were; +Chasing sounds across the galaxy +'Till silence is but a blur. + -- QYX. +% diff --git a/data/etc/fortunes/Sports b/data/etc/fortunes/Sports new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..2055b7b847 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/etc/fortunes/Sports @@ -0,0 +1,457 @@ +A [golf] ball hitting a tree shall be deemed not to have hit the tree. Hitting a tree is simply bad luck and has no place in a scientific game. The player should estimate the distance the ball would have traveled if it had not hit the tree and play the ball from there, preferably atop a nice firm tuft of grass. + -- Donald A. Metz +% +A [golf] ball sliced or hooked into the rough shall be lifted and placed in the fairway at a point equal to the distance it carried or rolled into the rough. Such veering right or left frequently results from friction between the face of the club and the cover of the ball and the player should not be penalized for the erratic behavior of the ball resulting from such uncontrollable physical phenomena. + -- Donald A. Metz +% + A boy scout troop went on a hike. Crossing over a stream, one of the boys dropped his wallet into the water. Suddenly a carp jumped, grabbed the wallet and tossed it to another carp. Then that carp passed it to another carp, and all over the river carp appeared and tossed the wallet back and forth. + "Well, boys," said the Scout leader, "you've just seen a rare case of carp-to-carp walleting." +% +A gambler's biggest thrill is winning a bet. His next biggest thrill is losing a bet. +% +A new 'chutist had just jumped from the plane at 10,000 feet, and soon discovered that all his lines were hopelessly tangled. At about 5,000 feet, still struggling, he noticed someone coming up from the ground at about the same speed as he was going towards the ground. As they passed each other at 3,000 feet, the 'chutist yells, "HEY! DO YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT PARACHUTES?" + The reply came, fading towards the end, "NO! DO YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT COLEMAN STOVES?" +% +A nickel ain't worth a dime anymore. + -- Yogi Berra +% +A putt that stops close enough to the cup to inspire such comments as "you could blow it in" may be blown in. This rule does not apply if the ball is more than three inches from the hole, because no one wants to make a travesty of the game. + -- Donald A. Metz +% + A ranger was walking through the forest and encountered a hunter carrying a shotgun and a dead loon. "What in the world do you think you're doing? Don't you know that the loon is on the endagered species list?" + Instead of answering, the hunter showed the ranger his game bag, which contained twelve more loons. + "Why would you shoot loons?", the ranger asked. + "Well, my family eats them and I sell the plumage." + "What's so special about a loon? What does it taste like?" + "Oh, somewhere between an American Bald Eagle and a Trumpeter Swan." +% + Accidentally Shot + + Colonel Gray, of Petaluma, came near losing his life a few days ago, in a singular manner. A gentleman with whom he was hunting attempted to bring down a dove, but instead of doing so put the load of shot through the Colonel's hat. One shot took effect in his forehead. + -- Sacramento Daily Union, April 20, 1861 +% +"Ain't that something what happened today. One of us got traded to Kansas City." + -- Casey Stengel, informing outfielder Bob Cerv he'd + been traded. +% +All bridge hands are equally likely, but some are more equally likely than others. + -- Alan Truscott +% +Although golf was originally restricted to wealthy, overweight Protestants, today it's open to anybody who owns hideous clothing. + -- Dave Barry +% +Although written many years ago, Lady Chatterley's Lover has just been reissued by the Grove Press, and this pictorial account of the day-to-day life of an English gamekeeper is full of considerable interest to outdoor minded readers, as it contains many passages on pheasant-raising, the apprehending of poachers, ways to control vermin, and other chores and duties of the professional gamekeeper. Unfortunately, one is obliged to wade through many pages of extraneous material in order to discover and savour those sidelights on the management of a midland shooting estate, and in this reviewer's opinion the book cannot take the place of J. R. Miller's "Practical Gamekeeping." + -- Ed Zern, "Field and Stream" (Nov. 1959) +% +Anxious after the delay, Gruber doesn't waste any time getting the Koenig [a modified Porsche] up to speed, and almost immediately we are blowing off Alfas, Fiats, and Lancias full of excited Italians. These people love fast cars. But they love sport too and no passing encounter goes unchallenged. Nothing serious, just two wheels into your lane as you're bearing down on them at 130-plus -- to see if you're paying attention. + -- Road & Track article about driving two absurdly fast scars across Europe. +% +[Babe] Ruth made a big mistake when he gave up pitching. + -- Tris Speaker, 1921 +% +Bill Dickey is learning me his experience. + -- Yogi Berra in his rookie season. +% +Brandy Davis, an outfielder and teammate of mine with the Pittsburgh Pirates, is my choice for team captain. Cincinnatti was beating us 3-1, and I led off the bottom of the eighth with a walk. The next hitter banged a hard single to right field. Feeling the wind at my back, I rounded second and kept going, sliding safely into third base. + With runners at first and third, and home-run hitter Ralph Kiner at bat, our manager put in the fast Brandy Davis to run for the player at first. Even with Kiner hitting and a change to win the game with a home run, Brandy took off for second and made it. Now we had runners at second and third. + I'm standing at third, knowing I'm not going anywhere, and see Brandy start to take a lead. All of a sudden, here he comes. He makes a great slide into third, and I scream, "Brandy, where are you going?" He looks up, and shouts, "Back to second if I can make it." + -- Joe Garagiola, "It's Anybody's Ball Game" +% +Check me if I'm wrong, Sandy, but if I kill all the golfers... they're gonna lock me up and throw away the key! +% +College football is a game which would be much more interesting if the faculty played instead of the students, and even more interesting if the trustees played. There would be a great increase in broken arms, legs, and necks, and simultaneously an appreciable diminution in the loss to humanity. + -- H. L. Mencken +% + COONDOG MEMORY + (heard in Rutledge, Missouri, about eighteen years ago) + +Now, this dog is for sale, and she can not only follow a trail twice as old as the average dog can, but she's got a pretty good memory to boot. For instance, last week this old boy who lives down the road from me, and is forever stinkmouthing my hounds, brought some city fellow around to try out ol' Sis here. So I turned her out south of the house and she made two or three big swings back and forth across the edge of the woods, set back her head, bayed a couple of times, cut straight through the woods, come to a little clearing, jumped about three foot straight up in the air, run to the other side, and commenced to letting out a racket like she had something treed. We went over there with our flashlights and shone them up in the tree but couldn't catch no shine offa coon's eyes, and my neighbor sorta indicated that ol' Sis might be a little crazy, `cause she stood right to the tree and kept singing up into it. So I pulled off my coat and climbed up into the branches, and sure enough, there was a coon skeleton wedged in between a couple of branches about twenty foot up. Now as I was saying, she can follow a pretty old trail, but this fellow was still calling her crazy or touched `cause she had hopped up in the air while she was crossing the clearing, until I reminded him that the Hawkins' had a fence across there about five years back. Now, this dog is for sale. + -- News that stayed News: Ten Years of Coevolution Quarterly +% +Dallas Cowboys Official Schedule + + Sept 14 Pasadena Junior High + Sept 21 Boy Scout Troop 049 + Sept 28 Blind Academy + Sept 30 World War I Veterans + Oct 5 Brownie Scout Troop 041 + Oct 12 Sugarcreek High Cheerleaders + Oct 26 St. Thomas Boys Choir + Nov 2 Texas City Vet Clinic + Nov 9 Korean War Amputees + Nov 15 VA Hospital Polio Patients +% +Decisions of the judges will be final unless shouted down by a really overwhelming majority of the crowd present. Abusive and obscene language may not be used by contestants when addressing members of the judging panel, or, conversely, by members of the judging panel when addressing contestants (unless struck by a boomerang). + -- Mudgeeraba Creek Emu-Riding and Boomerang-Throwing Assoc. +% +Don't let go of what you've got hold of, until you have hold of something else. + -- First Rule of Wing Walking +% +Easiest Color to Solve on a Rubik's Cube: Black. + +Simply remove all the little colored stickers on the cube, and each of side of the cube will now be the original color of the plastic underneath -- black. According to the instructions, this means the puzzle is solved. + -- Steve Rubenstein +% +Ever feel like life was a game and you had the wrong instruction book? +% +Ever feel like you're the head pin on life's bowling alley, and everyone's rolling strikes? +% +Every creature has within him the wild, uncontrollable urge to punt. + -- Snoopy +% +Failed Attempts To Break Records + In September 1978 Mr. Terry Gripton, of Stafford, failed to break the world shouting record by two and a half decibels. "I am not surprised he failed," his wife said afterwards. "He's really a very quiet man and doesn't even shout at me." + In August of the same year Mr. Paul Anthony failed to break the record for continuous organ playing by 387 hours. His attempt at the Golden Fish Fry Restaurant in Manchester ended after 36 hours 10 minutes, when he was accused of disturbing the peace. "People complained I was too noisy," he said. + In January 1976 Mr. Barry McQueen failed to walk backwards across the Menai Bridge playing the bagpipes. "It was raining heavily and my drone got waterlogged," he said. + A TV cameraman thwarted Mr. Bob Specas' attempt to topple 100,000 dominoes at the Manhattan Center, New York on 9 June 1978. 97,500 dominoes had been set up when he dropped his press badge and set them off. + -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" +% +Flying is the second greatest feeling you can have. The greatest feeling? Landing... Landing is the greatest feeling you can have. +% +Football builds self-discipline. What else would induce a spectator to sit out in the open in subfreezing weather? +% +Football combines the two worst features of American life. It is violence punctuated by committee meetings. + -- George F. Will, "Men At Work: The Craft of Baseball" +% +Football is a game designed to keep coalminers off the streets. + -- Jimmy Breslin +% +Fortune finishes the great quotations, #15 + +"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses." And while you're at it, throw in a couple of those Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders. +% +FORTUNE'S FUN FACTS TO KNOW AND TELL: #14 + The Baby Ruth candy bar was not named after George Herman "The Babe" Ruth, but after the oldest daughter of President Grover Cleveland. +% +From 0 to "what seems to be the problem officer" in 8.3 seconds. + -- Ad for the new VW Corrado +% +George's friend Sam had a dog who could recite the Gettysburg Address. "Let me buy him from you," pleaded George after a demonstration. + "Okay," agreed Sam. "All he knows is that Lincoln speech anyway." + At his company's Fourth of July picnic, George brought his new pet and announced that the animal could recite the entire Gettysburg Address. No one believed him, and they proceeded to place bets against the dog. George quieted the crowd and said, "Now we'll begin!" Then he looked at the dog. The dog looked back. No sound. "Come on, boy, do your stuff." Nothing. A disappointed George took his dog and went home. + "Why did you embarrass me like that in front of everybody?" George yelled at the dog. "Do you realize how much money you lost me?" + "Don't be silly, George," replied the dog. "Think of the odds we're gonna get on Labor Day." +% +Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he'll invite himself over for dinner. + -- Calvin Keegan +% +Go directly to jail. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200. +% +Harry is heavily into camping, and every year in the late fall, he makes us all go to Assateague, which is an island on the Atlantic Ocean famous for its wild horses. I realize that the concept of wild horses probably stirs romantic notions in many of you, but this is because you have never met any wild horses in person. In person, they are like enormous hooved rats. They amble up to your camp site, and their attitude is: "We're wild horses. We're going to eat your food, knock down your tent and poop on your shoes. We're protected by federal law, just like Richard Nixon." + -- Dave Barry, "Tenting Grandpa Bob" +% +Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people. + -- W. C. Fields +% +How can you think and hit at the same time? + -- Yogi Berra +% +I always turn to the sports pages first, which record people's accomplishments. The front page has nothing but man's failures. + -- Chief Justice Earl Warren +% +I believe that professional wrestling is clean and everything else in the world is fixed. + -- Frank Deford, sports writer +% +I can't decide whether to commit suicide or go bowling. + -- Florence Henderson +% +I do not care if half the league strikes. Those who do will encounter quick retribution. All will be suspended, and I don't care if it wrecks the National League for five years. This is the United States of America and one citizen has as much right to play as another. + -- Ford Frick, National League President, reacting to a threatened strike by some Cardinal players in 1947 if Jackie Robinson took the field against St. Louis. The Cardinals backed down and played. +% +I guess I've been so wrapped up in playing the game that I never took time enough to figure out where the goal line was -- what it meant to win -- or even how you won. + -- Cash McCall +% +I guess the Little League is even littler than we thought. + -- D. Cavett +% +I just know I'm a better manager when I have Joe DiMaggio in center field. + -- Casey Stengel +% +I like your game but we have to change the rules. +% +I never met a man I didn't want to fight. + -- Lyle Alzado, professional football lineman +% +I realize that today you have a number of top female athletes such as Martina Navratilova who can run like deer and bench-press Chevrolet trucks. But to be brutally frank, women as a group have a long way to go before they reach the level of intensity and dedication to sports that enables men to be such incredible jerks about it. + -- Dave Barry, "Sports is a Drag" +% +I went to the race track once and bet on a horse that was so good that it took seven others to beat him! +% +I would be batting the big feller if they wasn't ready with the other one, but a left-hander would be the thing if they wouldn't have knowed it already because there is more things involved than could come up on the road, even after we've been home a long while. + -- Casey Stengel +% +I would rather say that a desire to drive fast sports cars is what sets man apart from the animals. +% +I'd rather push my Harley than ride a rice burner. +% +I'm a lucky guy, and I'm happy to be with the Yankees. And I want to thank everyone for making this night necessary. + -- Yogi Berra at a dinner in his honor +% +I'm glad we don't have to play in the shade. + -- Golfer Bobby Jones on being told that it was 105 degrees in the shade. +% +I've only got 12 cards. +% +If a putt passes over the hole without dropping, it is deemed to have dropped. The law of gravity holds that any object attempting to maintain a position in the atmosphere without something to support it must drop. The law of +gravity supercedes the law of golf. + -- Donald A. Metz +% +If a team is in a positive frame of mind, it will have a good attitude. If it has a good attitude, it will make a commitment to playing the game right. If it plays the game right, it will win -- unless, of course, it doesn't have enough talent to win, and no manager can make goose-liver pate out of goose feathers, so why worry? + -- Sparky Anderson +% +If people concentrated on the really important things in life, there'd be a shortage of fishing poles. + -- Doug Larson +% +If swimming is so good for your figure, how come whales look the way they do? +% +If you do your best the rest of the way, that takes care of everything. When we get to October 2, we'll add up the wins, and then we'll either all go into the playoffs, or we'll all go home and play golf. Both those things sound pretty good to me. + -- Sparky Anderson +% +If you don't know what game you're playing, don't ask what the score is. +% +If you sit down at a poker game and don't see a sucker, get up. You're the sucker. +% +If you want to see card tricks, you have to expect to take cards. + -- Harry Blackstone +% +If you're carrying a torch, put it down. The Olympics are over. +% +In Africa some of the native tribes have a custom of beating the ground with clubs and uttering spine chilling cries. Anthropologists call this a form of primitive self-expression. In America we call it golf. +% +In Brooklyn, we had such great pennant races, it made the World Series just something that came later. + -- Walter O'Malley, Dodgers owner +% +It gets late early out there. + -- Yogi Berra +% +It has long been known that one horse can run faster than another -- but which one? Differences are crucial. + -- Lazarus Long +% +It's like deja vu all over again. + -- Yogi Berra +% +It's not whether you win or lose but how you played the game. + -- Grantland Rice +% +It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you look playing the game. +% +Keep grandma off the streets -- legalize bingo. +% +Keep in mind always the four constant Laws of Frisbee: + +(1) The most powerful force in the world is that of a disc straining to land under a car, just out of reach (this force is technically termed "car suck"). + +(2) Never precede any maneuver by a comment more predictive than "Watch this!" + +(3) The probability of a Frisbee hitting something is directly proportional to the cost of hitting it. For instance, a Frisbee will always head directly towards a policeman or a little old lady rather than the beat up Chevy. + +(4) Your best throw happens when no one is watching; when the cute girl you've been trying to impress is watching, the Frisbee will invariably bounce out of your hand or hit you in the head and knock you silly. +% +Life is a gamble at terrible odds, if it was a bet you wouldn't take it. + -- Tom Stoppard, "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead" +% +Life is a game of bridge -- and you've just been finessed. +% +Life is a game. In order to have a game, something has to be more important than something else. If what already is, is more important than what isn't, the game is over. So, life is a game in which what isn't, is more important than what is. Let the good times roll. + -- Werner Erhard +% +Life is a yo-yo, and mankind ties knots in the string. +% +Look, we play the Star Spangled Banner before every game. You want us to pay income taxes, too? + -- Bill Veeck, Chicago White Sox +% +Love means nothing to a tennis player. +% +Mankind's yearning to engage in sports is older than recorded history, dating back to the time millions of years ago, when the first primitive man picked up a crude club and a round rock, tossed the rock into the air, and whomped the club into the sloping forehead of the first primitive umpire. + +What inner force drove this first athlete? Your guess is as good as mine. Better, probably, because you haven't had four beers. + -- Dave Barry, "Sports is a Drag" +% +MARTA SAYS THE INTERESTING thing about fly-fishing is that it's two lives connected by a thin strand. + +Come on, Marta, grow up. + -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +MARTA WAS WATCHING THE FOOTBALL GAME with me when she said, "You know most of these sports are based on the idea of one group protecting its territory from invasion by another group." + +"Yeah," I said, trying not to laugh. Girls are funny. + -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. +% + Max told his friend that he'd just as soon not go hiking in the hills. Said he, "I'm an anti-climb Max." + [So is that punchline.] +% +Most people's favorite way to end a game is by winning. +% +My first baseman is George "Catfish" Metkovich from our 1952 Pittsburgh Pirates team, which lost 112 games. After a terrible series against the New York Giants, in which our center fielder made three throwing errors and let two balls get through his legs, manager Billy Meyer pleaded, "Can somebody think of something to help us win a game?" + "I'd like to make a suggestion," Metkovich said. "On any ball hit to center field, let's just let it roll to see if it might go foul." + -- Joe Garagiola, "It's Anybody's Ball Game" +% +My way of joking is to tell the truth. That's the funniest joke in the world. + -- Muhammad Ali +% +Nadia Comaneci, simple perfection. + -- '76 Olympics +% +Never play pool with anyone named "Fats". +% +NEWS FLASH!! +Today the East German pole-vault champion became the West German pole-vault champion. +% +Nothing increases your golf score like witnesses. +% +Now there's three things you can do in a baseball game: you can win or you can lose or it can rain. + -- Casey Stengel +% +"Oh, he [a big dog] hunts with papa," she said. "He says Don Carlos [the dog] is good for almost every kind of game. He went duck hunting one time and did real well at it. Then Papa bought some ducks, not wild ducks but, you know, farm ducks. And it got Don Carlos all mixed up. Since the ducks were always around the yard with nobody shooting at them he knew he wasn't supposed to kill them, but he had to do something. So one morning last spring, when the ground was still soft, he took all the ducks and buried them." "What do you mean, buried them?" "Oh, he didn't hurt them. He dug little holes all over the yard and picked up the ducks in his mouth and put them in the holes. Then he covered them up with mud except for their heads. He did thirteen ducks that way and was digging a hole for another one when Tony found him. We talked about it for a long time. Papa said Don Carlos was afraid the ducks might run away, and since he didn't know how to build a cage he put them in holes. He's a smart dog." + -- R. Bradford, "Red Sky At Morning" +% +On Thanksgiving Day all over America, families sit down to dinner at the same moment -- halftime. +% +Once there was this conductor see, who had a bass problem. You see, during a portion of Beethovan's Ninth Symphony in which there are no bass violin parts, one of the bassists always passed a bottle of scotch around. So, to remind himself that the basses usually required an extra cue towards the end of the symphony, the conductor would fasten a piece of string around the page of the score before the bass cue. As the basses grew more and more inebriated, two of them fell asleep. The conductor grew quite nervous (he was very concerned about the pitch) because it was the bottom of the ninth; the score was tied and the basses were loaded with two out. +% +One thought driven home is better than three left on base. +% +One way to stop a runaway horse is to bet on him. +% +Our [softball] team usually puts the other woman at second base, where the maximum possible number of males can get there on short notice to help out in case of emergency. As far as I can tell, our second basewoman is a pretty good baseball player, better than I am, anyway, but there's no way to know for sure because if the ball gets anywhere near her, a male comes barging over from, say, right field, to deal with it. She's been on the team for three seasons now, but the males still don't trust her. They know, deep in their souls, that if she had to choose between catching a fly ball and saving an infant's life, she probably would elect to save the infant's life, without ever considering whether there were men on base. + -- Dave Barry, "Sports is a Drag" +% +P-K4 +% +Pedro Guerrero was playing third base for the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1984 when he made the comment that earns him a place in my Hall of Fame. Second baseman Steve Sax was having trouble making his throws. Other players were diving, screaming, signaling for a fair catch. At the same time, Guerrero, at third, was making a few plays that weren't exactly soothing to manager Tom Lasorda's stomach. Lasorda decided it was time for one of his famous motivational meetings and zeroed in on Guerrero: "How can you play third base like that? You've gotta be thinking about something besides baseball. What is it?" + "I'm only thinking about two things," Guerrero said. "First, `I hope they don't hit the ball to me.'" The players snickered, and even Lasorda had to fight off a laugh. "Second, `I hope they don't hit the ball to Sax.'" + -- Joe Garagiola, "It's Anybody's Ball Game" +% +Repel them. Repel them. Induce them to relinquish the spheroid. + -- Indiana University football cheer +% +Reporter: "What would you do if you found a million dollars?" +Yogi Berra: "If the guy was poor, I would give it back." +% +Rick: "How can you close me up? On what grounds?" +Renault: "I'm shocked! Shocked! To find that gambling is going on here." +Croupier (handing money to Renault): "Your winnings, sir." +Renault:"Oh. Thank you very much." + -- Casablanca +% +Rube Walker: "Hey, Yogi, what time is it?" +Yogi Berra: "You mean now?" +% +Ruth made a great mistake when he gave up pitching. Working once a week, he might have lasted a long time and become a great star. + -- Tris Speaker, commenting on Babe Ruth's plan to change from being a pitcher to an outfielder. + Cerf/Navasky, "The Experts Speak" +% +Sailing is fun, but scrubbing the decks is aardvark. + -- Heard on Noahs' ark +% +San Francisco has always been my favorite booing city. I don't mean the people boo louder or longer, but there is a very special intimacy. When they boo you, you know they mean *you*. Music, that's what it is to me. One time in Kezar Stadium they gave me a standing boo. + -- George Halas, professional football coach +% +Several years ago, an international chess tournament was being held in a swank hotel in New York. Most of the major stars of the chess world were there, and after a grueling day of chess, the players and their entourages retired to the lobby of the hotel for a little refreshment. In the lobby, some players got into a heated argument about who was the brightest, the fastest, and the best chess player in the world. The argument got quite loud, as various players claimed that honor. At that point, a security guard in the lobby turned to another guard and commented, "If there's anything I just can't stand, it's chess nuts boasting in an open foyer." +% +Show me a good loser in professional sports and I'll show you an idiot. Show me a good sportsman and I'll show you a player I'm looking to trade. + -- Leo Durocher +% +So I'm ugly. So what? I never saw anyone hit with his face. + -- Yogi Berra +% +Son, someday a man is going to walk up to you with a deck of cards on which the seal is not yet broken. And he is going to offer to bet you that he can make the Ace of Spades jump out of the deck and squirt cider in your ears. But son, do not bet this man, for you will end up with a ear full of cider. + -- Sky Masterson's Father +% +Support Bingo, keep Grandma off the streets. +% +Teamwork is essential -- it allows you to blame someone else. +% +Ten of the meanest cons in the state pen met in the corner of the yard to shoot some craps. The stakes were enormous, the tension palpable. + When his turn came to shoot, Dutsky nervously plunked down his entire wad, shook the dice and rolled. A smile crossed his face as a seven showed up, but it quickly changed to horror as third die slipped out of his sleeve and fell to the ground with the two others. No one said a word. Finally, Killer Lucci picked up the third die, put it in his pocket and handed the others to Dutsky. + "Roll 'em," Lucci said. "Your point is thirteen." +% +Texas A&M football coach Jackie Sherrill went to the office of the Dean of Academics because he was concerned about his players' mental abilities. "My players are just too stupid for me to deal with them", he told the unbelieving dean. At this point, one of his players happened to enter the dean's office. "Let me show you what I mean", said Sherrill, and he told the player to run over to his office to see if he was in. "OK, Coach", the player replied, and was off. "See what I mean?" Sherrill asked. "Yeah", replied the dean. "He could have just picked up this phone and called you from here." +% +That's the true harbinger of spring, not crocuses or swallows returning to Capistrano, but the sound of a bat on a ball. + -- Bill Veeck +% +The duck hunter trained his retriever to walk on water. Eager to show off this amazing accomplishment, he asked a friend to go along on his next hunting trip. Saying nothing, he fired his first shot and, as the duck fell, the dog walked on the surface of the water, retrieved the duck and returned it to his master. + "Notice anything?" the owner asked eagerly. + "Yes," said his friend, "I see that fool dog of yours can't swim." +% +The Fastest Defeat In Chess + The big name for us in the world of chess is Gibaud, a French chess master. + In Paris during 1924 he was beaten after only four moves by a Monsieur Lazard. Happily for posterity, the moves are recorded and so chess enthusiasts may reconstruct this magnificent collapse in the comfort of their own homes. + Lazard was black and Gibaud white: + 1: P-Q4, Kt-KB3 + 2: Kt-Q2, P-K4 + 3: PxP, Kt-Kt5 + 4: P-K6, Kt-K6 + White then resigns on realizing that a fifth move would involve either a Q-KR5 check or the loss of his queen. + -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" +% +The fellow sat down at a bar, ordered a drink and asked the bartender if he wanted to hear a dumb-jock joke. + "Hey, buddy," the bartender replied, "you see those two guys next to you? They used to be with the Chicago Bears. The two dudes behind you made the U.S. Olympic wrestling team. And for you information, I used to play +center at Notre Dame." + "Forget it," the customer said. "I don't want to explain it five times." +% +The most serious doubt that has been thrown on the authenticity of the biblical miracles is the fact that most of the witnesses in regard to them were fishermen. + -- Arthur Binstead +% +THE OLD POOL SHOOTER had won many a game in his life. But now it was time to hang up the cue. When he did, all the other cues came crashing go the floor. + +"Sorry," he said with a smile. + -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +The one sure way to make a lazy man look respectable is to put a fishing rod in his hand. +% + The only real game in the world, I think, is baseball... You've got to start way down, at the bottom, when you're six or seven years old. You can't wait until you're fifteen or sixteen. You've got to let it grow up with you, and if you're successful and you try hard enough, you're bound to come out on top, just like these boys have come to the top now. + -- Babe Ruth, in his 1948 farewell speech at Yankee Stadium +% +The pitcher wound up and he flang the ball at the batter. The batter swang and missed. The pitcher flang the ball again and this time the batter connected. He hit a high fly right to the center fielder. The center fielder was all set to catch the ball, but at the last minute his eyes were blound by the sun and he dropped it. + -- Dizzy Dean +% +The real problem with hunting elephants is carrying the decoys. +% +The surest way to remain a winner is to win once, and then not play any more. +% +The University of California Bears announced the signing of Reggie Philbin to a letter of intent to attend Cal next Fall. Philbin is said to make up for no talent by cheating well. Says Philbin of his decision to attend Cal, "I'm in it for the free ride." +% +The urge to gamble is so universal and its practice so pleasurable that I assume it must be evil. + -- Heywood Broun +% +The whole of life is futile unless you consider it as a sporting proposition. +% +There's a couple of million dollars worth of baseball talent on the loose, ready for the big leagues, yet unsigned by any major league. There are pitchers who would win 20 games a season ... and outfielders [who] could hit .350, infielders who could win recognition as stars, and there's at least one catcher who at this writing is probably superior to Bill Dickey, Josh Gibson. Only one thing is keeping them out of the big leagues, the pigmentation of their skin. They happen to be colored. + -- Shirley Povich, 1941 +% +They also surf who only stand on waves. +% +To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and, whatever you hit, call it the target. +% +Trust everybody, but cut the cards. + -- Finlay Peter Dunne, "Mr. Dooley's Philosophy" +% +Two brothers, Mort and Bill, like to sail. While Bill has a great deal of experience, he certainly isn't the rigger Mort is. +% +Two golfers were being held up as the twosome of women in front of them whiffed shots, hunted for lost balls and stood over putts for what seemed like hours. + "I'll ask if we can play through," Bill said as he strode toward the women. Twenty yards from the green, however, he turned on his heel and went back to where his companion was waiting. + "Can't do it," he explained, sheepishly. "One of them's my wife and the other's my mistress!" + "I'll ask," said Jim. He started off, only to turn and come back before reaching the green. + "What's wrong?" Bill asked. + "Small world, isn't it?" +% +We was playin' the Homestead Grays in the city of Pitchburgh. Josh [Gibson] comes up in the last of the ninth with a man on and us a run behind. Well, he hit one. The Grays waited around and waited around, but finally the empire rules it ain't comin' down. So we win. The next day, we was disputin' the Grays in Philadelphia when here come a ball outta the sky right in the glove of the Grays' center fielder. The empire made the only possible call. "You're out, boy!" he says to Josh. "Yesterday, in Pitchburgh." + -- Satchel Paige +% +When he got in trouble in the ring, [Ali] imagined a door swung open and inside he could see neon, orange, and green lights blinking, and bats blowing trumpets and alligators blowing trombones, and he could hear snakes screaming. Weird masks and actors' clothes hung on the wall, and if he stepped across the sill and reached for them, he knew that he was committing himself to destruction. + -- George Plimpton +% +When I'm gone, boxing will be nothing again. The fans with the cigars and the hats turned down'll be there, but no more housewives and little men in the street and foreign presidents. It's goin' to be back to the fighter who comes to town, smells a flower, visits a hospital, blows a horn and says he's in shape. Old hat. I was the onliest boxer in history people asked questions like a senator. + -- Muhammad Ali +% +When in doubt, lead trump. +% +Winning isn't everything, but losing isn't anything. +% +Winning isn't everything. It's the only thing. + -- Vince Lombardi +% +Woman: "Is Yoo-Hoo hyphenated?" +Yogi Berra: "No, ma'am, its not even carbonated." diff --git a/data/etc/fortunes/Tech Support Excuses b/data/etc/fortunes/Tech Support Excuses new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..a564a448cf --- /dev/null +++ b/data/etc/fortunes/Tech Support Excuses @@ -0,0 +1,1341 @@ +Tech support excuse #1: +clock speed +% +Tech support excuse #2: +solar flares +% +Tech support excuse #3: +electromagnetic radiation from satellite debris +% +Tech support excuse #4: +static from nylon underwear +% +Tech support excuse #5: +static from plastic slide rules +% +Tech support excuse #6: +global warming +% +Tech support excuse #7: +poor power conditioning +% +Tech support excuse #8: +static buildup +% +Tech support excuse #9: +doppler effect +% +Tech support excuse #10: +hardware stress fractures +% +Tech support excuse #11: +magnetic interferance from money/credit cards +% +Tech support excuse #12: +dry joints on cable plug +% +Tech support excuse #13: +we're waiting for [the phone company] to fix that line +% +Tech support excuse #14: +sounds like a Windows problem, try calling Microsoft support +% +Tech support excuse #15: +temporary routing anomoly +% +Tech support excuse #16: +somebody was calculating pi on the server +% +Tech support excuse #17: +fat electrons in the lines +% +Tech support excuse #18: +excess surge protection +% +Tech support excuse #19: +floating point processor overflow +% +Tech support excuse #20: +divide-by-zero error +% +Tech support excuse #21: +POSIX complience problem +% +Tech support excuse #22: +monitor resolution too high +% +Tech support excuse #23: +improperly oriented keyboard +% +Tech support excuse #24: +network packets travelling uphill (use a carrier pigeon) +% +Tech support excuse #25: +Decreasing electron flux +% +Tech support excuse #26: +first Saturday after first full moon in Winter +% +Tech support excuse #27: +radiosity depletion +% +Tech support excuse #28: +CPU radiator broken +% +Tech support excuse #29: +It works the way the Wang did, what's the problem +% +Tech support excuse #30: +positron router malfunction +% +Tech support excuse #31: +cellular telephone interference +% +Tech support excuse #32: +techtonic stress +% +Tech support excuse #33: +pizeo-electric interference +% +Tech support excuse #34: +(l)user error +% +Tech support excuse #35: +working as designed +% +Tech support excuse #36: +dynamic software linking table corrupted +% +Tech support excuse #37: +heavy gravity fluctuation, move computer to floor rapidly +% +Tech support excuse #38: +secretary plugged hairdryer into UPS +% +Tech support excuse #39: +terrorist activities +% +Tech support excuse #40: +not enough memory, go get system upgrade +% +Tech support excuse #41: +interrupt configuration error +% +Tech support excuse #42: +spaghetti cable cause packet failure +% +Tech support excuse #43: +boss forgot system password +% +Tech support excuse #44: +bank holiday - system operating credits not recharged +% +Tech support excuse #45: +virus attack, luser responsible +% +Tech support excuse #46: +waste water tank overflowed onto computer +% +Tech support excuse #47: +Complete Transient Lockout +% +Tech support excuse #48: +bad ether in the cables +% +Tech support excuse #49: +Bogon emissions +% +Tech support excuse #50: +Change in Earth's rotational speed +% +Tech support excuse #51: +Cosmic ray particles crashed through the hard disk platter +% +Tech support excuse #52: +Smell from unhygenic janitorial staff wrecked the tape heads +% +Tech support excuse #53: +Little hamster in running wheel had coronary; waiting for replacement to be Fedexed from Wyoming +% +Tech support excuse #54: +Evil dogs hypnotized the night shift +% +Tech support excuse #55: +Plumber mistook routing panel for decorative wall fixture +% +Tech support excuse #56: +Electricians made popcorn in the power supply +% +Tech support excuse #57: +Groundskeepers stole the root password +% +Tech support excuse #58: +high pressure system failure +% +Tech support excuse #59: +failed trials, system needs redesigned +% +Tech support excuse #60: +system has been recalled +% +Tech support excuse #61: +not approved by the FCC +% +Tech support excuse #62: +need to wrap system in aluminum foil to fix problem +% +Tech support excuse #63: +not properly grounded, please bury computer +% +Tech support excuse #64: +CPU needs recalibration +% +Tech support excuse #65: +system needs to be rebooted +% +Tech support excuse #66: +bit bucket overflow +% +Tech support excuse #67: +descramble code needed from software company +% +Tech support excuse #68: +only available on a need to know basis +% +Tech support excuse #69: +knot in cables caused data stream to become twisted and kinked +% +Tech support excuse #70: +nesting roaches shorted out the ether cable +% +Tech support excuse #71: +The file system is full of it +% +Tech support excuse #72: +Satan did it +% +Tech support excuse #73: +Daemons did it +% +Tech support excuse #74: +You're out of memory +% +Tech support excuse #75: +There isn't any problem +% +Tech support excuse #76: +Unoptimized hard drive +% +Tech support excuse #77: +Typo in the code +% +Tech support excuse #78: +Yes, yes, its called a desgin limitation +% +Tech support excuse #79: +Look, buddy: Windows 3.1 IS A General Protection Fault. +% +Tech support excuse #80: +That's a great computer you have there; have you considered how it would work as a BSD machine? +% +Tech support excuse #81: +Please excuse me, I have to circuit an AC line through my head to get this database working. +% +Tech support excuse #82: +Yeah, yo mama dresses you funny and you need a mouse to delete files. +% +Tech support excuse #83: +Support staff hung over, send aspirin and come back LATER. +% +Tech support excuse #84: +Someone is standing on the ethernet cable, causeing a kink in the cable +% +Tech support excuse #85: +Windows 95 undocumented "feature" +% +Tech support excuse #86: +Runt packets +% +Tech support excuse #87: +Password is too complex to decrypt +% +Tech support excuse #88: +Boss' kid screwed up the machine +% +Tech support excuse #89: +Electromagnetic energy loss +% +Tech support excuse #90: +Budget cuts +% +Tech support excuse #91: +Mouse chewed through power cable +% +Tech support excuse #92: +Stale file handle (next time use Tupperware(tm)!) +% +Tech support excuse #93: +Feature not yet implimented +% +Tech support excuse #94: +Internet outage +% +Tech support excuse #95: +Pentium FDIV bug +% +Tech support excuse #96: +Vendor no longer supports the product +% +Tech support excuse #97: +Small animal kamikaze attack on power supplies +% +Tech support excuse #98: +The vendor put the bug there. +% +Tech support excuse #99: +SIMM crosstalk. +% +Tech support excuse #100: +IRQ dropout +% +Tech support excuse #101: +Collapsed Backbone +% +Tech support excuse #102: +Power company testing new voltage spike (creation) equipment +% +Tech support excuse #103: +operators on strike due to broken coffee machine +% +Tech support excuse #104: +backup tape overwritten with copy of system manager's favourite CD +% +Tech support excuse #105: +UPS interrupted the server's power +% +Tech support excuse #106: +The electrician didn't know what the yellow cable was so he yanked the ethernet out. +% +Tech support excuse #107: +The keyboard isn't plugged in +% +Tech support excuse #108: +The air conditioning water supply pipe ruptured over the machine room +% +Tech support excuse #109: +The electricity substation in the car park blew up. +% +Tech support excuse #110: +The rolling stones concert down the road caused a brown out +% +Tech support excuse #111: +The salesman drove over the CPU board. +% +Tech support excuse #112: +The monitor is plugged into the serial port +% +Tech support excuse #113: +Root nameservers are out of sync +% +Tech support excuse #114: +electro-magnetic pulses from French above ground nuke testing. +% +Tech support excuse #115: +your keyboard's space bar is generating spurious keycodes. +% +Tech support excuse #116: +the real ttys became pseudo ttys and vice-versa. +% +Tech support excuse #117: +the printer thinks its a router. +% +Tech support excuse #118: +the router thinks its a printer. +% +Tech support excuse #119: +evil hackers from Serbia. +% +Tech support excuse #120: +we just switched to FDDI. +% +Tech support excuse #121: +halon system went off and killed the operators. +% +Tech support excuse #122: +because Bill Gates is a Jehovah's witness and so nothing can work on St. Swithin's day. +% +Tech support excuse #123: +user to computer ratio too high. +% +Tech support excuse #124: +user to computer ration too low. +% +Tech support excuse #125: +we just switched to Sprint. +% +Tech support excuse #126: +it has Intel Inside +% +Tech support excuse #127: +Sticky bits on disk. +% +Tech support excuse #128: +Power Company having EMP problems with their reactor +% +Tech support excuse #129: +The ring needs another token +% +Tech support excuse #130: +new management +% +Tech support excuse #131: +telnet: Unable to connect to remote host: Connection refused +% +Tech support excuse #132: +SCSI Chain overterminated +% +Tech support excuse #133: +It's not plugged in. +% +Tech support excuse #134: +because of network lag due to too many people playing deathmatch +% +Tech support excuse #135: +You put the disk in upside down. +% +Tech support excuse #136: +Daemons loose in system. +% +Tech support excuse #137: +User was distributing pirated software on server; system seized by FBI. +% +Tech support excuse #138: +BNC (brain not (user brain not connected) +% +Tech support excuse #139: +UBNC (user brain not connected) +% +Tech support excuse #140: +LBNC (luser brain not connected) +% +Tech support excuse #141: +disks spinning backwards - toggle the hemisphere jumper. +% +Tech support excuse #142: +new guy cross-connected phone lines with ac power bus. +% +Tech support excuse #143: +had to use hammer to free stuck disk drive heads. +% +Tech support excuse #144: +Too few computrons available. +% +Tech support excuse #145: +Flat tire on station wagon with tapes. ("Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurling down the highway" Andrew S. Tanenbaum) +% +Tech support excuse #146: +Communications satellite used by the military for star wars. +% +Tech support excuse #147: +Party-bug in the Aloha protocol. +% +Tech support excuse #148: +Insert coin for new game +% +Tech support excuse #149: +Dew on the telephone lines. +% +Tech support excuse #150: +Arcserve crashed the server again. +% +Tech support excuse #151: +Some one needed the powerstrip, so they pulled the switch plug. +% +Tech support excuse #152: +My pony-tail hit the on/off switch on the power strip. +% +Tech support excuse #153: +Big to little endian conversion error +% +Tech support excuse #154: +You can tune a file system, but you can't tune a fish (from most tunefs man pages) +% +Tech support excuse #155: +Dumb terminal +% +Tech support excuse #156: +Zombie processes haunting the computer +% +Tech support excuse #157: +Incorrect time syncronization +% +Tech support excuse #158: +Defunct processes +% +Tech support excuse #159: +Stubborn processes +% +Tech support excuse #160: +non-redundant fan failure +% +Tech support excuse #161: +monitor VLF leakage +% +Tech support excuse #162: +bugs in the RAID +% +Tech support excuse #163: +no "any" key on keyboard +% +Tech support excuse #164: +root rot +% +Tech support excuse #165: +Backbone Scoliosis +% +Tech support excuse #166: +/pub/lunch +% +Tech support excuse #167: +excessive collisions & not enough packet ambulances +% +Tech support excuse #168: +le0: no carrier: transceiver cable problem? +% +Tech support excuse #169: +broadcast packets on wrong frequency +% +Tech support excuse #170: +popper unable to process jumbo kernel +% +Tech support excuse #171: +NOTICE: alloc: /dev/null: filesystem full +% +Tech support excuse #172: +pseudo-user on a pseudo-terminal +% +Tech support excuse #173: +Recursive traversal of loopback mount points +% +Tech support excuse #174: +Backbone adjustment +% +Tech support excuse #175: +OS swapped to disk +% +Tech support excuse #176: +vapors from evaporating sticky-note adhesives +% +Tech support excuse #177: +sticktion +% +Tech support excuse #178: +short leg on process table +% +Tech support excuse #179: +multicasts on broken packets +% +Tech support excuse #180: +ether leak +% +Tech support excuse #181: +Atilla the Hub +% +Tech support excuse #182: +endothermal recalibration +% +Tech support excuse #183: +filesystem not big enough for Jumbo Kernel Patch +% +Tech support excuse #184: +loop found in loop in redundant loopback +% +Tech support excuse #185: +system consumed all the paper for paging +% +Tech support excuse #186: +permission denied +% +Tech support excuse #187: +Reformatting Page. Wait... +% +Tech support excuse #188: +..disk or the processor is on fire. +% +Tech support excuse #189: +SCSI's too wide. +% +Tech support excuse #190: +Proprietary Information. +% +Tech support excuse #191: +Just type 'mv * /dev/null'. +% +Tech support excuse #192: +runaway cat on system. +% +Tech support excuse #193: +Did you pay the new Support Fee? +% +Tech support excuse #194: +We only support a 1200 bps connection. +% +Tech support excuse #195: +We only support a 28000 bps connection. +% +Tech support excuse #196: +Me no internet, only janitor, me just wax floors. +% +Tech support excuse #197: +I'm sorry a pentium won't do, you need an SGI to connect with us. +% +Tech support excuse #198: +Post-it Note Sludge leaked into the monitor. +% +Tech support excuse #199: +the curls in your keyboard cord are losing electricity. +% +Tech support excuse #200: +The monitor needs another box of pixels. +% +Tech support excuse #201: +RPC_PMAP_FAILURE +% +Tech support excuse #202: +kernel panic: write-only-memory (/dev/wom0) capacity exceeded. +% +Tech support excuse #203: +Write-only-memory subsystem too slow for this machine. Contact your local dealer. +% +Tech support excuse #204: +Just pick up the phone and give modem connect sounds. "Well you said we should get more lines so we don't have voice lines." +% +Tech support excuse #205: +Quantum dynamics are affecting the transistors +% +Tech support excuse #206: +Police are examining all internet packets in the search for a narco-net-traficer +% +Tech support excuse #207: +We are currently trying a new concept of using a live mouse. Unfortuantely, one has yet to survive being hooked up to the computer.....please bear with us. +% +Tech support excuse #208: +Your mail is being routed through Germany ... and they're censoring us. +% +Tech support excuse #209: +Only people with names beginning with 'A' are getting mail this week (a la Microsoft) +% +Tech support excuse #210: +We didn't pay the Internet bill and it's been cut off. +% +Tech support excuse #211: +Lightning strikes. +% +Tech support excuse #212: +Of course it doesn't work. We've performed a software upgrade. +% +Tech support excuse #213: +Change your language to Finnish. +% +Tech support excuse #214: +Flourescent lights are generating negative ions. If turning them off doesn't work, take them out and put tin foil on the ends. +% +Tech support excuse #215: +High nuclear activity in your area. +% +Tech support excuse #216: +What office are you in? Oh, that one. Did you know that your building was built over the universities first nuclear research site? And wow, are'nt you the lucky one, your office is right over where the core is buried! +% +Tech support excuse #217: +The MGs ran out of gas. +% +Tech support excuse #218: +The UPS doesn't have a battery backup. +% +Tech support excuse #219: +Recursivity. Call back if it happens again. +% +Tech support excuse #220: +Someone thought The Big Red Button was a light switch. +% +Tech support excuse #221: +The mainframe needs to rest. It's getting old, you know. +% +Tech support excuse #222: +I'm not sure. Try calling the Internet's head office -- it's in the book. +% +Tech support excuse #223: +The lines are all busy (busied out, that is -- why let them in to begin with?). +% +Tech support excuse #224: +Jan 9 16:41:27 huber su: 'su root' succeeded for .... on /dev/pts/1 +% +Tech support excuse #225: +It's those computer people in X {city of world}. They keep stuffing things up. +% +Tech support excuse #226: +A star wars satellite accidently blew up the WAN. +% +Tech support excuse #227: +Fatal error right in front of screen +% +Tech support excuse #228: +That function is not currently supported, but Bill Gates assures us it will be featured in the next upgrade. +% +Tech support excuse #229: +wrong polarity of neutron flow +% +Tech support excuse #230: +Lusers learning curve appears to be fractal +% +Tech support excuse #231: +We had to turn off that service to comply with the CDA Bill. +% +Tech support excuse #232: +Ionisation from the air-conditioning +% +Tech support excuse #233: +TCP/IP UDP alarm threshold is set too low. +% +Tech support excuse #234: +Someone is broadcasting pigmy packets and the router dosn't know how to deal with them. +% +Tech support excuse #235: +The new frame relay network hasn't bedded down the software loop transmitter yet. +% +Tech support excuse #236: +Fanout dropping voltage too much, try cutting some of those little traces +% +Tech support excuse #237: +Plate voltage too low on demodulator tube +% +Tech support excuse #238: +You did wha... oh _dear_.... +% +Tech support excuse #239: +CPU needs bearings repacked +% +Tech support excuse #240: +Too many little pins on CPU confusing it, bend back and forth until 10-20% are neatly removed. Do _not_ leave metal bits visible! +% +Tech support excuse #241: +_Rosin_ core solder? But... +% +Tech support excuse #242: +Software uses US measurements, but the OS is in metric... +% +Tech support excuse #243: +The computer fletely, mouse and all. +% +Tech support excuse #244: +Your cat tried to eat the mouse. +% +Tech support excuse #245: +The Borg tried to assimilate your system. Resistance is futile. +% +Tech support excuse #246: +It must have been the lightning storm we had (yesterdy) (last week) (last month) +% +Tech support excuse #247: +Due to Federal Budget problems we have been forced to cut back on the number of users able to access the system at one time. (namely none allowed....) +% +Tech support excuse #248: +Too much radiation coming from the soil. +% +Tech support excuse #249: +Unfortunately we have run out of bits/bytes/whatever. Don't worry, the next supply will be coming next week. +% +Tech support excuse #250: +Program load too heavy for processor to lift. +% +Tech support excuse #251: +Processes running slowly due to weak power supply +% +Tech support excuse #252: +Our ISP is having {switching,routing,SMDS,frame relay} problems +% +Tech support excuse #253: +We've run out of licenses +% +Tech support excuse #254: +Interference from lunar radiation +% +Tech support excuse #255: +Standing room only on the bus. +% +Tech support excuse #256: +You need to install an RTFM interface. +% +Tech support excuse #257: +That would be because the software doesn't work. +% +Tech support excuse #258: +That's easy to fix, but I can't be bothered. +% +Tech support excuse #259: +Someone's tie is caught in the printer, and if anything else gets printed, he'll be in it too. +% +Tech support excuse #260: +We're upgrading /dev/null +% +Tech support excuse #261: +The Usenet news is out of date +% +Tech support excuse #262: +Our POP server was kidnapped by a weasel. +% +Tech support excuse #263: +It's stuck in the Web. +% +Tech support excuse #264: +Your modem doesn't speak English. +% +Tech support excuse #265: +The mouse escaped. +% +Tech support excuse #266: +All of the packets are empty. +% +Tech support excuse #267: +The UPS is on strike. +% +Tech support excuse #268: +Neutrino overload on the nameserver +% +Tech support excuse #269: +Melting hard drives +% +Tech support excuse #270: +Someone has messed up the kernel pointers +% +Tech support excuse #271: +The kernel license has expired +% +Tech support excuse #272: +Netscape has crashed +% +Tech support excuse #273: +The cord jumped over and hit the power switch. +% +Tech support excuse #274: +It was OK before you touched it. +% +Tech support excuse #275: +Bit rot +% +Tech support excuse #276: +U.S. Postal Service +% +Tech support excuse #277: +Your Flux Capacitor has gone bad. +% +Tech support excuse #278: +The Dilithium Cyrstals need to be rotated. +% +Tech support excuse #279: +The static electricity routing is acting up... +% +Tech support excuse #280: +Traceroute says that there is a routing problem in the backbone. It's not our problem. +% +Tech support excuse #281: +The co-locator cannot verify the frame-relay gateway to the ISDN server. +% +Tech support excuse #282: +High altitude condensation from U.S.A.F prototype aircraft has contaminated the primary subnet mask. Turn off your computer for 9 days to avoid damaging it. +% +Tech support excuse #283: +Lawn mower blade in your fan need sharpening +% +Tech support excuse #284: +Electrons on a bender +% +Tech support excuse #285: +Telecommunications is upgrading. +% +Tech support excuse #286: +Telecommunications is downgrading. +% +Tech support excuse #287: +Telecommunications is downshifting. +% +Tech support excuse #288: +Hard drive sleeping. Let it wake up on it's own... +% +Tech support excuse #289: +Interference between the keyboard and the chair. +% +Tech support excuse #290: +The CPU has shifted, and become decentralized. +% +Tech support excuse #291: +Due to the CDA, we no longer have a root account. +% +Tech support excuse #292: +We ran out of dial tone and we're and waiting for the phone company to deliver another bottle. +% +Tech support excuse #293: +You must've hit the wrong anykey. +% +Tech support excuse #294: +PCMCIA slave driver +% +Tech support excuse #295: +The Token fell out of the ring. Call us when you find it. +% +Tech support excuse #296: +The hardware bus needs a new token. +% +Tech support excuse #297: +Too many interrupts +% +Tech support excuse #298: +Not enough interrupts +% +Tech support excuse #299: +The data on your hard drive is out of balance. +% +Tech support excuse #300: +Digital Manipulator exceeding velocity parameters +% +Tech support excuse #301: +appears to be a Slow/Narrow SCSI-0 Interface problem +% +Tech support excuse #302: +microelectronic Riemannian curved-space fault in write-only file system +% +Tech support excuse #303: +fractal radiation jamming the backbone +% +Tech support excuse #304: +routing problems on the neural net +% +Tech support excuse #305: +IRQ-problems with the Un-Interruptable-Power-Supply +% +Tech support excuse #306: +CPU-angle has to be adjusted because of vibrations coming from the nearby road +% +Tech support excuse #307: +emissions from GSM-phones +% +Tech support excuse #308: +CD-ROM server needs recalibration +% +Tech support excuse #309: +firewall needs cooling +% +Tech support excuse #310: +asynchronous inode failure +% +Tech support excuse #311: +transient bus protocol violation +% +Tech support excuse #312: +incompatible bit-registration operators +% +Tech support excuse #313: +your process is not ISO 9000 compliant +% +Tech support excuse #314: +You need to upgrade your VESA local bus to a MasterCard local bus. +% +Tech support excuse #315: +The recent proliferation of Nuclear Testing +% +Tech support excuse #316: +Elves on strike. (Why do they call EMAG Elf Magic) +% +Tech support excuse #317: +Internet exceeded Luser level, please wait until a luser logs off before attempting to log back on. +% +Tech support excuse #318: +Your EMAIL is now being delivered by the USPS. +% +Tech support excuse #319: +Your computer hasn't been returning all the bits it gets from the Internet. +% +Tech support excuse #320: +You've been infected by the Telescoping Hubble virus. +% +Tech support excuse #321: +Scheduled global CPU outage +% +Tech support excuse #322: +Your Pentium has a heating problem - try cooling it with ice cold water.(Do not turn of your computer, you do not want to cool down the Pentium Chip while he isn't working, do you?) +% +Tech support excuse #323: +Your processor has processed too many intructions. Turn it off emideately, do not type any commands!! +% +Tech support excuse #324: +Your packets were eaten by the terminator +% +Tech support excuse #325: +Your processor does not develop enough heat. +% +Tech support excuse #326: +We need a licensed electrician to replace the light bulbs in the computer room. +% +Tech support excuse #327: +The POP server is out of Coke +% +Tech support excuse #328: +Fiber optics caused gas main leak +% +Tech support excuse #329: +Server depressed, needs Prozak +% +Tech support excuse #330: +quatnum decoherence +% +Tech support excuse #331: +those damn racoons! +% +Tech support excuse #332: +suboptimal routing experience +% +Tech support excuse #333: +A plumber is needed, the network drain is clogged +% +Tech support excuse #334: +50% of the manual is in .pdf readme files +% +Tech support excuse #335: +the AA battery in the wallclock sends magnetic interference +% +Tech support excuse #336: +the xy axis in the trackball is coordinated with the summer soltice +% +Tech support excuse #337: +the butane lighter causes the pincushioning +% +Tech support excuse #338: +old inkjet cartridges emanate barium-based fumes +% +Tech support excuse #339: +manager in the cable duct +% +Tech support excuse #340: +Well fix that in the next (upgrade, update, patch release, service pack). +% +Tech support excuse #341: +HTTPD Error 666 : BOFH was here +% +Tech support excuse #342: +HTTPD Error 4004 : very old Intel cpu - insufficient processing power +% +Tech support excuse #343: +The ATM board has run out of 10 pound notes. We are having a whip round to refill it, care to contribute ? +% +Tech support excuse #344: +Network failure - call NBC +% +Tech support excuse #345: +Having to manually track the satellite. +% +Tech support excuse #346: +Your/our computer(s) had suffered a memory leak, and we are waiting for them to be topped up. +% +Tech support excuse #347: +The rubber band broke +% +Tech support excuse #348: +We're on Token Ring, and it looks like the token got loose. +% +Tech support excuse #349: +Stray Alpha Particles from memory packaging caused Hard Memory Error on Server. +% +Tech support excuse #350: +paradigm shift...without a clutch +% +Tech support excuse #351: +PEBKAC (Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair) +% +Tech support excuse #352: +The cables are not the same length. +% +Tech support excuse #353: +Second-sytem effect. +% +Tech support excuse #354: +Chewing gum on /dev/sd3c +% +Tech support excuse #355: +Boredom in the Kernel. +% +Tech support excuse #356: +the daemons! the daemons! the terrible daemons! +% +Tech support excuse #357: +I'd love to help you -- it's just that the Boss won't let me near the computer. +% +Tech support excuse #358: +struck by the Good Times virus +% +Tech support excuse #359: +YOU HAVE AN I/O ERROR -> Incompetent Operator error +% +Tech support excuse #360: +Your parity check is overdrawn and you're out of cache. +% +Tech support excuse #361: +Communist revolutionaries taking over the server room and demanding all the computers in the building or they shoot the sysadmin. Poor misguided fools. +% +Tech support excuse #362: +Plasma conduit breach +% +Tech support excuse #363: +Out of cards on drive D: +% +Tech support excuse #364: +Sand fleas eating the Internet cables +% +Tech support excuse #365: +parallel processors running perpendicular today +% +Tech support excuse #366: +ATM cell has no roaming feature turned on, notebooks can't connect +% +Tech support excuse #367: +Webmasters kidnapped by evil cult. +% +Tech support excuse #368: +Failure to adjust for daylight savings time. +% +Tech support excuse #369: +Virus transmitted from computer to sysadmins. +% +Tech support excuse #370: +Virus due to computers using shared needles. +% +Tech support excuse #371: +Incorrectly configured static routes on the corerouters. +% +Tech support excuse #372: +Forced to support NT servers; sysadmins quit. +% +Tech support excuse #373: +Suspicious pointer corrupted virtual machine +% +Tech support excuse #374: +Its the InterNIC's fault. +% +Tech support excuse #375: +Root name servers corrupted. +% +Tech support excuse #376: +Budget cuts forced us to sell all the power cords for the servers. +% +Tech support excuse #377: +Someone hooked the twisted pair wires into the answering machine. +% +Tech support excuse #378: +Operators killed by year 2000 bug bite. +% +Tech support excuse #379: +We've picked COBOL as the language of choice. +% +Tech support excuse #380: +Operators killed when huge stack of backup tapes fell over. +% +Tech support excuse #381: +Robotic tape changer mistook operator's tie for a backup tape. +% +Tech support excuse #382: +Someone was smoking in the computer room and set off the halon systems. +% +Tech support excuse #383: +Your processor has taken a ride to Heaven's Gate on the UFO behind Hale-Bopp's comet. +% +Tech support excuse #384: +It's an ID-10-T error +% +Tech support excuse #385: +Dyslexics retyping hosts file on servers +% +Tech support excuse #386: +The Internet is being scanned for viruses. +% +Tech support excuse #387: +Your computer's union contract is set to expire at midnight. +% +Tech support excuse #388: +Bad user karma. +% +Tech support excuse #389: +/dev/clue was linked to /dev/null +% +Tech support excuse #390: +Increased sunspot activity. +% +Tech support excuse #391: +We already sent around a notice about that. +% +Tech support excuse #392: +It's union rules. There's nothing we can do about it. Sorry. +% +Tech support excuse #393: +Interferance from the Van Allen Belt. +% +Tech support excuse #394: +Jupiter is aligned with Mars. +% +Tech support excuse #395: +Redundant ACLs. +% +Tech support excuse #396: +Mail server hit by UniSpammer. +% +Tech support excuse #397: +T-1's congested due to MP3 traffic to the news server. +% +Tech support excuse #398: +Data for intranet got routed through the extranet and landed on the internet. +% +Tech support excuse #399: +We are a 100% Microsoft Shop. +% +Tech support excuse #400: +We are Microsoft. What you are experiencing is not a problem; it is an undocumented feature. +% +Tech support excuse #401: +Sales staff sold a product we don't offer. +% +Tech support excuse #402: +Secretary sent chain letter to all 5000 employees. +% +Tech support excuse #403: +Sysadmin didn't hear pager go off due to loud music from bar-room speakers. +% +Tech support excuse #404: +Sysadmin accidentally destroyed pager with a large hammer. +% +Tech support excuse #405: +Sysadmins unavailable because they are in a meeting talking about why they are unavailable so much. +% +Tech support excuse #406: +Bad cafeteria food landed all the sysadmins in the hospital. +% +Tech support excuse #407: +Route flapping at the NAP. +% +Tech support excuse #408: +Computers under water due to SYN flooding. +% +Tech support excuse #409: +The vulcan-death-grip ping has been applied. +% +Tech support excuse #410: +Electrical conduits in machine room are melting. +% +Tech support excuse #411: +Traffic jam on the Information Superhighway. +% +Tech support excuse #412: +Radial Telemetry Infiltration +% +Tech support excuse #413: +Cow-tippers tipped a cow onto the server. +% +Tech support excuse #414: +tachyon emissions overloading the system +% +Tech support excuse #415: +Maintence window broken +% +Tech support excuse #416: +We're out of slots on the server +% +Tech support excuse #417: +Computer room being moved. Our systems are down for the weekend. +% +Tech support excuse #418: +Sysadmins busy fighting SPAM. +% +Tech support excuse #419: +Repeated reboots of the system failed to solve problem +% +Tech support excuse #420: +Feature was not beta tested +% +Tech support excuse #421: +Domain controler not responding +% +Tech support excuse #422: +Someone else stole your IP address, call the Internet detectives! +% +Tech support excuse #423: +It's not RFC-822 compliant. +% +Tech support excuse #424: +operation failed because: there is no message for this error (#1014) +% +Tech support excuse #425: +stop bit received +% +Tech support excuse #426: +internet is needed to catch the etherbunny +% +Tech support excuse #427: +network down, IP packets delivered via UPS +% +Tech support excuse #428: +Firmware update in the coffee machine +% +Tech support excuse #429: +Temporal anomaly +% +Tech support excuse #430: +Mouse has out-of-cheese-error +% +Tech support excuse #431: +Borg implants are failing +% +Tech support excuse #432: +Borg nanites have infested the server +% +Tech support excuse #433: +error: one bad user found in front of screen +% +Tech support excuse #434: +Please state the nature of the technical emergency +% +Tech support excuse #435: +Internet shut down due to maintainance +% +Tech support excuse #436: +Daemon escaped from pentagram +% +Tech support excuse #437: +crop circles in the corn shell +% +Tech support excuse #438: +sticky bit has come loose +% +Tech support excuse #439: +Hot Java has gone cold +% +Tech support excuse #440: +Cache miss - please take better aim next time +% +Tech support excuse #441: +Hash table has woodworm +% +Tech support excuse #442: +Trojan horse ran out of hay +% +Tech support excuse #443: +Zombie processess detected, machine is haunted. +% +Tech support excuse #444: +overflow error in /dev/null +% +Tech support excuse #445: +Browser's cookie is corrupted -- someone's been nibbling on it. +% +Tech support excuse #446: +According to Microsoft, it's by design +% +Tech support excuse #447: +vi needs to be upgraded to vii +%