Date: 8 Dec 88 15:22:28 PST (Thursday)
Subject: Life 3.V
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The Three Untruths of Today's Society:
1) The Check is in the Mail
2) I'll Still respect You in the Morning
3) Hi, I'm from the Government and here to help.
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My biggest worry is going sane, for if I do, I'll have to acknowledge and
admit to reality. I've seen reality.....I don't like it!
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A Scotsman was sick and in hospital. His doctors were afraid that
this was to be the end of him since nothing they did could do anything
to make him healthy. His physician asked him if there was anything
that he could do to make him more comfortable in his final hours.
The Scot replied, "If I could only hear the pipes one more time it would
make me very happy." So the doctor arranged for a piper to come into the
room and play for the dying man.
When the Scot heard the pipes the color came back into his cheeks, his
eyes became bright, his breathing was easier, and he got up and danced
around the room. He was completely cured! Later, while recounting the
tale to his fellows over lunch the doctor confessed that this was a
miracle cure that he couldn't explain. When the pipes began to play
the Scotsman was cured. The only problem he could see was that 2
Englishmen in for checkups died.
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'Tis said in Erin that 'twas the Irish who invented the bagpipes and gave
'em to the Scots as a joke...and the Scots haven't seen the joke yet.
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There was a young man from Perth
Who was born on the day of his birth
He married they say
On his wife's wedding day
And died the day he left the earth
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Some of the great lines from Princess Bride:
Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die
"You keep using that word. I dunna think it means what you think it means."
"But there's something you don't know, my friend...I'm not left handed."
"Don't rush a miracle man. You rush a miracle man, you get rotten miracles."
"Three men against twenty? Impossible. Now, if only we had a wheelbarrow..."
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Historically, Mammoth Cave, Kentucky "grew" as various caves in the area
were found to connect, and eventually connected to Mammoth itself. One of
these, in Flint Ridge, was Floyd Collins' Crystal Cave. (Yes, THAT Floyd
Collins!) The part of the cave that was open for visitors was a walk-
through, of course, but even in the thirties and forties, there was a good
deal more of the cave known. Before he got trapped in nearby Sand Cave,
Floyd explored a LOT of Crystal Cave. There's a very narrow hole through
which one had to squeeze to get into the greater part of the cave. This
hole was named "Scotchman's Trap" because it was so tight.
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(old) someone (forget who, it has been a while since I read the joke in
Reader's Digest, of all places) was going to introduce Ronald Reagan as the
keynote speaker at a dinner, adn wasn't exactly sure how to pronounce his
name. He went out walking his dog, and ran into his friend walking a dog also.
He explained his problem, and asked his friend if he could help him.
"It's definitely RAY-GUN, those Irishmen always pronounce 'ea' like
that."
"Thanks," he replied. "By the way, what kind of dog is that? It looks
good."
"Thank you, it's a bagel."
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How do you make Holy Water?
Boil the hell out of it.
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Actually, it so happens that an article just appeared in the
Globe & Mail about some Newfoundlanders. They wrote the editor to
complain about the road signs on the Trans-Canada Highway as it
approaches Toronto. It seems these guys drove 16 hours straight,
from St. John's NFLD, and were just about to hit Toronto when they
saw one of those big green signs saying "Toronto Left". So they
turned around and went home, very disappointed.
In a separate story, an interview on television of a Newfoundland
fisherman contained this priceless quote (true!):
Interviewer: What do you think about Newfoundland's future?
Fisherman: The future of Newfoundland is
a thing of the past.
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Then there was the joke about the Newfie Mafia leader (the Codfather,
of course) who was injured while trying to assassinate one of his
rivals.
He was trying to blow up the other Codfather's automobile, and.....
HE BURNED HIS LIPS ON THE TAILPIPE!
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Did you hear about the Newfie Rubix's cube? It's white on all sides and
it takes two minutes to solve.
Boss: "Newfie, you should have been here at nine o'clock."
Newfie: "Why, what happened?"
Newfie to his friend: " The boys said you weren't fit to sleep with the
pigs. I stuck up for you. I said you were."
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What should you do if a Newfie throws a pin at you?
Run!! He probably has a grenade in his mouth.
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Ah, Canada, where we could have had British culture, American know-how
and the passion of la France, but instead we got British Passion,
American culture and French know-how.
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During the infamous Norwegian/Swedish war, the Swedes were getting rather
irked since the Norse army would yell, from behind their bunkers, "Sven?
Sven! Where are you!" Needless to say, Sven would stand up and get shot
down by the army. So, the Swedes decided to pull the trick back against
the Norse. From behind their bunkers they yelled, "Olaf? Olaf! Where are
you?" Olaf replied, "Is that you, Sven?" Sven stood up and said, "Ja!
It's me, Olaf!" (*blam!*)
An American went to Oslo and came across (*gasp!*) a Norwegian. The
American asked, "Are you Swedish?" The Norseman, quite rightly offended,
said, "Of course I am not Swedish!" The American said, "Are you sure?
You look Swedish to me," to which the Norwegian replied, "Well, I've
been sick the past few weeks."
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Why do the swedes bring sandpaper to the desert ?
They use it as a map ...
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Kraft is starting up production of dairy products in Israel. The product
line is to be called "Cheeses of Nazareth".
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Ever sinces there's been an overflow of lawyers, they've been going out
of their way to find a case:
Are you injured?
You sure? Check again...
Have you been injured lately?
Have you EVER been injured?
Know anybody who's been injured?
Have any friends who've been injured?
Do they thave any friends who've been injured?
Do you're friend's friends have any friends who've been injured?
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A Texan who was visiting New England had just met a Vermont farmer,
and asked him, "How big is this farm of yours?"
"Well," replied the Vermonter, my farm runs some hundred yards from
here northward, and some hundred fifty yards from here eastward."
Hearing this, the Texan smiled and said, "Why back in Texas, I can
get into my car in front of my house in the morning, drive all day, and
at the end of the day I'll still be on my ranch."
"That's a shame," intoned the Vermonter, shaking his head, "I once
had a car like that myself."
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When I was in Jr. High School, I remember a gym teacher that was a
master at malaprops. He kept us in stitches all the time:
"You're men now boys."
"Before I say anything, let me say this."
"Square up that circle."
Anyway, Bill Peterson, the coach at FSU, has kept up the tradition:
On a favorable reaction to a speach he made, "They gave me a standing
observation."
"The greatest thing just happened. I got indicted into the Florida
Sports Hall of Fame."
"Let a dead horse rest."
"I'm the football around here - and don't you remember it!"
"You guys pair off in groups of threes, then line up in a circle."
"Don't look a sawhorse in the mouth."
Talking to Ronnie Wallace, a player aspiring to be a minister,
"Lead us in a few words of silent prayer."
"Don't burn your bridges at both ends."
"Don't kill the goose that layed the deviled egg."
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The Tuesday issue of Investors Daily has an article decrying the
lack of knowledge of economics in the intermediate grades (and
high school). There was a humorous sidebar, which follows:
Pupils Struggle with Economics Questions
Here are some answers to questions asked of seventh- and eighth-grade
students by the Foundation for Teaching Economics:
Q: What is money?
A: Green paper you use to buy stuff.
Q: Why do we have an economic system?
A: Because Congress wants it.
Q: Are you part of the economic system?
A: I'm a deduction on my parents' taxes.
Q: Why do people pay taxes?
A: To help out the government -- so they government doesn't have
to pay for everything.
Q: What is the gross national product?
A1: It's the worst product anybody makes.
A2: Cigarettes.
Q: What is the Federal Reserve?
A1: Extra money that the federal government has.
A2: It's the reserve, if we have to go to war -- it's like our
extra army.
Q: Why doesn't the government print more money to pay off its
national debt?
A1: They don't have enough paper.
A2: They have to wait until money is a year old or to a certain
age and then they are going to make more.
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And if you put Saturn in a bucket of water, it would float.
...but you wouldn't want to do that! It would leave a ring!
and leave you with a Titanic clean-up job to do.
I know that trick. The rings keep it up.
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A man decided to conduct a world wide poll
He asked a Texan "Excuse me, what's your opinion on the meat shortage?"
He got "What's a shortage?"
He went to Poland, asked same the question and got "What's meat?"
He went to Russia, asked same the question and got "What's an opinion?"
He went to New York, asked the same question and got "What's an excuse me?"
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A professor of Modern English Literature was teaching a class at the
university, in which he had just concluded three weeks of lectures on
science fiction. He had assigned readings by some of the best of the
genre, and had lead some fascinating and in-depth discussions with his
students on the works of Herbert, Asimov, Clarke, Wells, and several other
noted authors of science fiction, even Douglas Adams.
To conclude the course's segment on science fiction he assigned the class a
paper, on any topic they wished having to do with science fiction. The next
week, after the papers had been turned in, the professor was grading them
and came across this paper:
There once was an Israeli border guard named Issac. Across the border
from Issac, Abdul, a Arab border guard, had his post. One night,
Abdul snuck over the border and killed Issac.
When Issac's commander found out what had transpired the previous night,
he was furious, and the next night, he and his squad staged a raid in
which several Arab border guards, including Abdul, were killed.
This, of course lead to Arab reprisals, which in turn lead to Israeli
reprisals, which in turn...ad infinitum. Eventually, the Arabs and
Israelis were at war.
Well, the professor read this paper, and being utterly confused, reread it,
shook his head in disgust, and wrote a large "F" on it, in red ink, and then
moved on to the next paper.
The next day, at the end of class, he handed back the papers, and as he was
preparing to leave, the student who received the "F" approached and asked
to speak with the professor.
"I don't understand why you didn't like my paper," the student said.
"It's very simple," the professor replied. "You were assigned to write a
paper on science fiction. This paper has nothing whatsoever to do with
the assigned subject."
"I must disagree," said the student. "I think that my paper examined the
very basis of Zion's Friction."
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The Dread Tomato Addiction
MARK CLIFTON
1. Ninety-two point four percent of all juvenile delinquents have eaten
tomatoes.
2. Eighty-seven point one percent of all the adult criminals in
penitentiaries throughout the United States have eaten tomatoes.
3. Informers reliably inform that of all known American Communists,
ninety-two poont three percent have eaten tomatoes.
4. Eighty-four percent of all people killed in automobile accidents during
the year 1954 had eaten tomatoes.
5. Those who object to singling out specific groups for statistical proofs
require measurements within a total: Of those people born before the
year 1800, regardless of race, color, creed or caste, there has been
one-hundred percent mortality!
6. In spite of their dread addiction, a few tomato eaters born between
1800 and 1850 still manage to survive, but the clinical picture is poor:
their bones are brittle, their movements feeble, their skin seamed and
wrinkled, their eyesight failing; and frequently they have lost all
their teeth.
7. Those born between 1850 and 1900 number somewhat more survivors, but the
overt signs of the addiction's dread effects differ not in kind but only
in degree of deterioration. Prognostication is not hopeful.
8. Exhaustive experiments show that when tomatoes are withheld from an
addict, invariably his cravings will cause him to turn to substitutes --
such as oranges, steak, or potatoes. If both tomatoes and all
substitutes are persistently withheld, death invariably results within a
short time!
9. The skeptic of apocryphal statistics or the stubborn nonconformist who
will not accept the clearly proved conclusions of others may conduct his
own experiment.
10. Obtain two dozen tomatoes -- they may actually be purchased within a
block of some high schools or discovered growing in a respected
neighbor's back yard! Crush them to a pulp in exactly the state they
would have been if introduced into the stomach, pour the vile juice and
pulp into a bowl, and place a goldfish therein. Within minutes the
goldfish will be dead!
11. Those who argue that what affects a goldfish might not apply to a human
being may, at their own choice, wish to conduct a direct experiment by
fully immersing a live human head in the mixture for a full five minutes.
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Jeff Kawski writes:
] My friend once saw a question like this on his physics final:
]
] A physics student is asked to find 3 ways to use a barometer to determine
] the height of a tall building. His replies are as follows:
]
] 1. Find someone who knows how tall the building is, and trade him the
] barometer for the information.
Jeff Roberts replies:
] Wasn't this joke ripped off from the first episode of "Head of the Class"
] (bunch'a brainy kids led by real-world substitute)?
No way; this joke dates back to at least 1951. Sharvey Umbeck, president of
Knox College, told this one at every convocation for his 24 years at the helm of
my dear alma mudhole. I would be surprised if he invented it: he told it as if
it were much older. He used it to underscore the breadth of the liberal arts.
The canonical reply list was:
0. What the teacher wanted:
Measure the barometric pressure at the top and bottom of the building.
Plug these into the equation in the book and spit out the answer.
1. Student's first attempt:
Trade the barometer to the building's owner for the height.
[teacher rejects: no property characteristic of the barometer]
2. Measure the height of the barometer. Scale the side of the building,
measuring its height in barometer-units.
[rejected: uses no basic scienctific principles]
3. Drop the barometer from the top of the building. Measure the time until it
hits the street. Correcting for the mass/surface ratio of the instrument,
use basic acceleration equation to find the height.
[rejected: barometer is no longer a barometer]
4. Tie string to top of barometer. Lower from roof to almost ground. Swing.
Period of pendulum can be used to find distance from barometer's CG to top
of building. Add displacement from CG to bottom of barometer; this is height.
[rejected: does not incorporate barometer's intended function]
5. Oh! You want that *boring* stuff from the beginning of the term! What is
something this simple doing on the final? Anyone who doesn't know that has
already dropped. I assumed you wanted us to *think*!
--
Henry Cate III [cate3@netcom.com]
The Life humor collection maintainer, selections from the internet
From: "Patrick Ryan" [p.ryan@uws.edu.au]
"Honour thy father" does not mean repeat his mistakes.
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