Date: 4 May 88 17:12:21 PDT (Wednesday)
Subject: Life 3.2
Welcome to South Carolina,
Set your watch back 20 years.
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(west) berlin is the only city in the world where every direction you go is east.
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On the day a suit against him was to be settled in court, a prominent
congress man was called away on urgent bussiness. He told his attorney to
notify him as soon as a judgement was handed down. Later that day, he received
a cable that read, "JUSTICE HAS PREVAILED." The politician immediately wired
back, "APPEAL AT ONCE."
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Q: Why is it so windy at Candlestick Park? (Home of the San Francisco Giants)
A: Because of all the Giant Fans!!!!!!!
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Subject: Followership Through Mediocrity?
(Background: Xerox currently has a program called leadership through Quality)
From the list of President's Awards
"...used his extensive knowledge of materials and xerographic physics to
[...] His idea for redesigning the developer to comfortably meet rather
than exceed customer requirements..."
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Favorite Bathroom Sign:
"Question authority"
beneath it
"why ?"
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Joke 1.
Man in Restaurant: "Waiter, waiter! Bring me a crocodile sandwich, and make it snappy!".
Joke 2.
Man in shop: "I'd like to buy a wasp, please"
Salesperson: "A wasp? We don't sell wasps!"
Man: "Well, why have you got one in the window, then?"
Joke 3.
An idiot was out for a run in the country with his hoop and stick. He goes
into a pub for a drink, leaving his hoop and stick outside. When he comes
out, it's gone. He goes back inside, weeping, and when the landlord enquires
whats wrong, he says his hoop and stick are gone. The landlord says "Well,
so what?", to which the idiot replies "How am I going to get home now?"
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I had gotten lost in cryptic and ambiguous regulations, and in total
desperation called the Internal Revenue service for some explanations.
I got hold of someone thoroughly familiar with the subject of my questions.
He gave me complete and helpful answers.
I like to give positive reinforcement when I run across people like that,
so I made it a point to say "Thank you! You've been really informative
and helpful." To which the IRS agent said
"I'm sorry".
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What is the difference between a taxidermist and a tax collector ?
The taxidermist takes only your skin.
Mark Twain
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The American ambassador visited the Romanian president. In the waiting
room he talked with two of the ministers for five minutes.
When he entered he said to the Romanian president,
"I really don't want to bother you but I talked with two of your
ministers, and my gold watch was disappeared."
So the president answered, "OK. I'll take care of it,"
left the room and came back two minutes later with the watch.
The ambassador said, "Thank you very much," said the ambassador.
"I hope that I didn't cause any crisis between you and them."
"That's OK," said the president. "They did not notice."
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In 1986, Silo, a discount appliance chain, ran a TV commerical for a stereo
it claimed cost only "299 bananas." Sure enough, dozens of customers in
Seattle and El Paso took the TV spots literally and brought in 11,000 bananas.
Silo honored its pledge, accepted the fruit as payment, and lost $10,465 on the stereos.
---------------
Copyright 1988 by Bruce Nash and Allan Zullo. From the forthcoming book,
The Misfortune 500, to be published by Pocket Books.
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YOU KNOW IT'S GOING TO BE A " Terrible day at the office" WHEN:
You find your boss, two higher levels of management, and a security guard
waiting for you when you get in.
You find your boss, two higher levels of management, and the group VP have
all moved to another division while you were on vacation.
You find your office door has disappeared since last night.
You find a completely empty parking lot when you get to work at 9:00 AM.
The morning business page reads, "Xerox taken over by General Electric."
You start to walk out the door of your house and find police barricades at
each end of your street and a SWAT team pointing at your roof.
People start calling at four AM asking for directions to your house that
you wish to sell for $15,000.
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Okay, all this talk about BMW's and pranks on BMW owners has led to Car Pranks,
designed to frustrate or confound everyone but you. Some of these require
victims with a sense of humor. Not all these are original, but they are my favorites:
1) Wave at someone you don't know. They usually assume a dumbfounded facial
expression and wonder, "Who was that? Do I know them?" I get some great
reactions out of this.
2) When you're driving alone, pretend to be talking to someone next to you.
Any one passing you will look to see who the short person was that you're
talking too. They'll look again when they see no one.
3) Break into your own car. Need I explain?
4) In a crowded parking lot, wave your keys around and pretend to be heading
to your car. People looking for a parking spot will follow you all over
the place.
5) Also in a parking lot, when someone pulls into the parking spot facing you,
you slowly ease out, making them think they're not moving.
7) Between one intersection and another, gesculate wildly and point at
someone's tires. At the next intersection, when they unroll their windows
to hear what you're saying, you explain, "Nice tires."
9) When there's three guys in a car (# in front or 3 in back) and you're not
in the middle, duck as a car drives by. It looks like the other two guys
are huddled up together.
10) Ever notice that even the slightest flash of brake-lights produces great
produces great reactions from tailgaters?
I also like to come out of a roller-coaster ride with my head slumped
forward on my chest, my eyes closed and my arms hanging loosely at my
sides, but that has nothing to do with cars.
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It seems that William Tell, aside from being involved in such exploits as
escaping across Lake Lucerne, and being able to shoot an apple off his kid's
head with an arrow, was also one MEAN bowler. In fact, he was so good that
on occasion he was contracted out to secretly take the place of certain
other bowlers in the leagues when large bets were on. The economic situation
being what it was, Mr. Tell didn't mind a little money on the side.
It turns out that there was one particular Swiss nobleman who was an unusually
poor bowler, and this gentleman made use of Mr. Tell's services in league
matches quite often. Finally, Tell more or less took this man's place in the
league (no one being the wiser), and both men became quite wealthy as a result.
Much later, in the 1930's, Ernest Hemingway was doing some literary research
in Bern when he more or less accidentally came across the diaries of this
nobleman, which included a detailed account of the hitherto undiscovered
arrangement between himself and Mr. Tell. So fascinated was Hemingway with
this man who had had such an effect on Tell's life, that he immediately began
working on a book about the nobleman.
The book became a literary classic, selling millions of copies. The title,
of course, was "For Whom the Tell Bowls"
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As couple sat in living room, watching TV, the phone rang. The husband
picked it up, listened for a moment and then screamed,"Damn it! How should
I know? call weather bureau" and hung up.
"What was that all about?" wife asked.
"Aw, some idiot wanted to know whether coast was clear."
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If anybody is interested in a good airline story that is true, I have one
that I heard about on the news two years ago.
It seems there was a guy who was flying from Germany to Oakland
California. His plane was being refueled in San Francisco and he was just
waiting to get his transferring flight. Well, he waited until he heard
this over the loudspeaker. {Said with an Aussie accent}
"Now boarding flight ### for AKLAND"
Well, the poor man couldn't understand what the lady had said, but he
assumed that this was his flight. He gave his boarding pass to the gentleman
at the gate, but the man didn't really look at it carefully. About half an hour
later the man looked out the plane window and realized that he was flying over
the ocean. He thought this was odd, so he called the stewardess over and
inquired about it. The stewardess promptly took to laughing for at least
a good number of minutes before telling the man that his flight was actually
going to Auckland New Zealand. The man was rather perturbed, but the airline
promised to get him home. After landing in New Zealand, they had to reroute
him throught the Phillipines and later through Hawaii to get back to California.
Now that's a HELL of a trip to undertake when you start out from Germany!!!
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Subject: Product assurance testing
Re: Urban legends
David Paulsen (seven@nuchat)
While taking an introductory COBOL course about eight years ago I got to
be good friends with the instructor, who had been around computers since
the late 50's. He told me a story he swore to be true.
Seems the hardware types had spent a number of hours installing a new 'washing-machine'
5-platter disk drive on the big Honeywell, and were just about to invoke
diagnostics. Somebody hit the final key and they all sat back to wait for
the machine's verdict... all of a sudden, the most GAWD AWFUL sound, kind
of a ripping, screeching, freezing-bearing sound came from the new drive.
Everybody turned around, in time to see the plastic-oid cover rip free from
the top of the box, and the platter, spinning out of control, lift itself
up out of the drive and float ABOVE the spindle before listing to port and
finally diving for the floor, where it landed like a frisbee, still spinning.
Stunned silence.
"Well, I guess that's a 'fail'" one tech remarked.
Apparently, the spindle had snapped just as the drive got up to speed.
----------------------------------------------------
From: ajs1@bentley.UUCP (T Stillwell)
All who watched the movie "Roxanne" will recall the scene in a bar where
Steve Martin's character humiliates a wise-guy who has made a
rude remark about his nose. The guy is asked if he can't come up with
some wittier remark than he made, and he sarcastically
asks if Martin can come up with something better. Martin says he can
in fact produce twenty "Something Betters".
Did anyone notice that in fact he reels off TWENTY FIVE?
They are:
1. Obvious: "Excuse me, is that your nose, or did a bus park on your face?"
2. Meteorological: "Everybody take cover, she's going to blow!"
3. Fashionable: "You know, you could de-emphasize your nose if you wore
something larger, like Wyoming."
4. Personal: "Well, here we are, just the three of us."
5. Punctual: "All right Dellman, your nose was on time, but you were
fifteen minutes late."
6. Envious: "Ooh, I wish I were you, to be able to smell your own ear."
7. Naughty: "Pardon me sir, some of the ladies have asked if you
wouldn't mind putting that thing away."
8. Philosophical: "You know, it's not the size of a nose that's
important, it's what's in it what matters."
9. Humorous: "Laugh and the world laughs with you; sneeze and it's
goodbye Seattle."
10. Commercial: "Hi, I'm Earl Scheib, and I can paint that nose for
Thirty-Nine Ninety-Five."
11. Polite: "Ah, would you mind not bobbing your head? The, ah,
orchestra keeps changing tempo."
12. Melodic: (Everybody) "He's got the whole world.. in his nose."
13. Sympathetic: "Ooh, what happened, did your parents lose a bet with God?"
14. Complimentary: "You must love the little birdies to give them this
to perch on."
15. Scientific: "Say, does that thing there influence the tides?"
16. Obscure: "Hoo, I'd hate to see the grindstone."
17. Enquiry: "When you stop and smell the flowers, are they afraid?"
18. French: "Sir, ze pigs have refused to find any more truffles until
you leave."
19. Pornographic: "Finally, a man can satisfy two women at once."
20. Religious: "The Lord giveth, and he just kept on giving, didn't he?"
21. Disgusting: "Say, who mows your nose hair?"
22. Paranoid: "Keep that guy away from my cocaine."
23. Romantic: "It must be wonderful to wake up in the morning and smell
the coffee ... in Brazil."
24. Appreciative: "Ooh how original, most people have their teeth capped."
25. Dirty: "Your name wouldn't be ... Dick, would it?"
----------------------------------------------------
"An Elementary Look at Campaigns and Elections"
(Every year, teacher Mike Wilson of Ballwin, Missouri has his
elementary-school students study the presidential election process in
America. From the resulting essays and exam papers, Wilson has culled
some gems of youthful insight and wisdom, not to mention skepticism
worth of a politics-weary adult. As the 1984 presidential election
grows near, we offer some of Wilson's treasures.)
Did you ever think what I used to think about candidates running
neck-and-neck? Well it is not true.
Universal suffrage means that even the illegible get to vote.
Calling a person a runner-up is the polite way of saying you lost.
The difference between a king and a president is that a king is the son
of his father but a president is not.
What I learned about elections is that we aren't really getting to
elect the president. It is some people in a college who get to. I
have not decided what to do about it yet but I am not going to just sit
around.
It is possible to get the majority of electoral votes without getting
the majority of popular votes. Anyone who can ever understand how this
works gets to be president.
Some of our presidents never did much else and are famous only because
they became president.
The more I think about trying to run for president the less I think of
it.
The president has the power to appoint and disappoint the members of
his cabinet.
Much has been said about balancing the budget. It has been found that
the budget is more talkable than balanceable.
The campaign is when the candidate tells what he stand for and the
election is when the votes tell if they can stand for his being elected.
Actually, elections are different from politics. Elections come and go
while politics are with us all the time.
The winning candidate is elected and inoculated.
In January, the president makes his Inaugural Address after he has been
sworn at.
Once he is elected, sometimes the president has to work 24 hours a day
until he finds out what he is supposed to do.
The nominees are usually called candidates or campaigners although I
have heard them called other things.
One of the strictest rules is all dark horses running for president must
be people.
Popular votes tell who is the most popular. Electoral votes tell who
is the most elected.
Heredity is a bad thing in politics because it gets us kings instead of
presidents.
A caucus is something people vote in. Sort of a small booth.
An overwhelming favorite is a candidate that often comes over to the
convention and whelms the delegates.
The jobs of delegates is to resent their states.
Noncommittal is to be able to talk and talk without saying anything.
When the radio mentions a landslide, cross your fingers and hope it is
talking about an election.
A dark horse is a candidate that the delegates don't know enough about
to dislike yet.
Political science is to try to figure out what makes candidates act
that way.
A split ticket is when you don't like any of them on the ticket so you
tear it up.
When they talk about the most promising presidential candidate, they
mean the one who can think of the most things to promise.
Elephants and donkeys never fought until politics came along.
Political strategy is when you don't let people know you have run out
of ideas and keep shouting anyway.
A candidate should always renounce his words carefully.
We are learning how to make our election results known quicker and
quicker. It is our campaigns we are having trouble getting any shorter.
One of the mainest rules of campaigning is you are not allowed to go on
a whistle-stop tour without a train.
Politician is the bawling out name for a candidate you don't like.
Speaking of defeat, candidates are told never to.
Campaigns give us a great deal of happiness by their finally ending.
[ Reported collection source, Ford Times ]
----------------------------------------------------
At the risk of starting another net storm with Yet Another Stupid Robber Joke
(YASRJ) messages, a friend recently showed me a clipping from a newspaper
which I though I'd pass along to all the netlanders who enjoy seeing and
collecting bits of stupidity. After all isn't this what rec.humor (no
crossposing here) is supposed to be CLUTTERED UP with anyway? That was
a rhetorical question - so don't bother answering.
ADIEU
ADIEU
ADIEU
...without further ADIEU...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
About Banking...
RULES FOR BANK ROBBERS
According to the FBI, most modern-day bank robberies are "unsophisticated
and unprofessional crimes," comitted by young male repeat offenders who
apparently don't know the first thing about their business. This information
was included in an interesting, amusing article titles "How Not to Rob a Bank,"
by Tim Clark, which appeared in the 1987 edition of The Old Farmers Almanac.
Clark reported that in spite of the widespread use of surveillance cameras,
76 percent of bank robbers use no disquise, 86 percent never study the bank
before robbing it, and 95 percent make no long-range plans for concealing the
loot. Thus, he offered this advice to would-be bank robbers, along with
examples of what can happen if the rules aren't followed:
1. Pick the right bank. Clark advises that you don't follow the lead of the
fellow in Anaheim, Cal., who tried to hold up a bank that was no longer in
business and had no money. On the other hand, you don't want to be too
familiar with the bank. A California robber ran into his mother while making
his getaway. She turned him in.
2. Approach the right teller. Granted, Clark says, this is harder to plan.
One teller in Springfield, Mass., followed the holdup man out of the bank and
down the street until she saw him go into a restaurant. She hailed a passing
police car, and the police picked him up. Another teller was given a holdup
note by a robber, and her father, who was next in line, wrestled the man to the
ground and sat on him until authorities arrived.
3. Don't sign your demand note. Demand notes have been written on the back
of a subpoena issued in the name of a bank robber in Pittsburgh, on an envelope
bearing the name and address of another in Detriot, and in East Hartford,
Conn., on the back of a withdrawal slip giving the robber's signature and
account number.
4. Beware of dangerous vegetables. A man in White Plains, N.Y., tried to
hold up a bank with a zucchini. The police captured him at his house, where he
showed them his "weapon."
5. Avoid being fussy. A robber in Panorama City, Cal., gave a teller a note
saying, "I have a gun. Give me all your twenties in this envelope." The
teller said, "All I've got is two twenties." The robber took them and left.
6. Don't advertise. A holdup man thought that if he smeared mercury ointment
on his face, it would make him invisible to the cameras. Actually, it
accentuated his features, giving authorities a much clearer picture. Bank
robbers in Minnesota and California tried to create a diversion by throwing
stolen money out of the windows of their cars. They succeeded only in drawing
attention to themselves.
7. Take right turns only. Avoid the sad fate of the thieves in Florida who
took a wrong turn and ended up on the Homestead Air Force Base. They drove up
to a military police guardhouse and, thinking it was a toolbooth, offered the
security men money.
8. Provide your own transportation. It is not clever to borrow the teller's
car, which she carefully described to police. This resulted in the most
quickly solved bank robbery in the history of Pittsfield, Mass.
9. Don't be too sensitive. In these days of exploding dye packs, stuffing
the cash into your pants can lead to embarrassing staings, Clark points out,
not to mention severe burns in sensitive places--as bandits in San Diego and
Boston painfully discovered.
10. Consider another line of work. One newvous Newport, R.I., robber, while
trying to stuff his ill-gotten gains into his shirt pocket, shot himself in
the head and died instantly. Then there was the case of the hopeful criminal
in Swansea, Mass., who, when the teller told him she had no money, fainted.
He was still unconscious when the police arrived.
In view of such ineptitude, it is not surprising that in 1978 and 1979, for
example, federal and state officers made arrests in 69 percent of the bank
holdups reported.
--
Henry Cate III [cate3@netcom.com]
The Life collection maintainer, selections of humor from the internet
Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in
overalls and looks like work. - Thomas Edison
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