Date: 31 Aug 92 16:43:35 PDT (Monday)
Subject: Life 8.L
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Sifted out from Victor Schwartz's mailing list:
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Dave Barry on Legal Age for Driving:
In most states you can get a driver's license when you're 16 years old,
which made a lot of sense to me when I was 16 years old but now seems
insane.
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Dave Barry on "Looks that were popular years ago"
You look back at your high school yearbook or, heaven help you, your
mother's yearbook, and you see the Looks that were popular years ago, and
you wonder how the human race managed to reproduce.
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Dave Barry on Parents in a New Light
As we started having children of our own, we began to see our parents in a
new light, to realize that they were not, really, so different from us, and
that only they could provide us with something very precious, something
that had been missing from our lives: reliable babysitting.
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(From a Question & Answer column in today's San Jose Mercury News:)
Q: When Davey Allison rolled his race car 11 times, was that a record?
A: No. In 1962, Curtis Turner at Atlanta International Raceway
cartwheeled and rolled his car 13 times. He hurt his little finger.
**************************
(Nancy Twomey's contribution to the Tandem Humor DL:)
In a discussion of politics and the term limitations issue heard on the
radio this morning, the following comment was made:
Politicians are like Diapers,
they need to be changed regularly AND for much the same reasons.
**************************
Tokyo (AP) - A major Japanese tire maker has stopped making automobile
tires with a tread pattern that resembles the Arabic word for Allah after
receiving protests from Muslims.
Akira Mikami, spokesman for the Tokyo-based Yokohama Rubber Co., said that
in Islamic countries his company will replace the tires free of charge.
The company also apologized for its lack of knowledge of Islam. Mikami
said the tread was designed by computer to maximize driving safety and was
not meant to blaspheme Allah.
**************************
From
pasteur!agate!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio
I just realized why Clinton visited Tandem yesterday rather than Sun
or HP which would have brought larger crowds.
He thought Tandem would be a friendlier crowd when he heard they
were a "fault tolerant" company.
**************************
(A variation of Mark Smith's contribution to the Tandem Humor DL:)
Question:
Why did the dumb [hair-color-of-your-choice] [male/female] fail [his/her]
driving test?
Answer:
(S)he opened the door to let the clutch out.
**************************
(From the "Selling It" column of the June 1992 Consumer Reports magazine:)
"A Dim Understanding"
Durell International of Paducah, Ky., recently advertised a $29.95 solar-
powered car battery charger. "Let the sun's natural rays charge your battery
24 hours a day," the ad urged. Hmmm. Maybe the device works best in the land
of the midnight sun.
**************************
(From the "News of the Weird" column in today's San Jose Mercury News:)
In April, Velma Ann Wantlin, 28, was given a citation by police in Houma,
La., for improper use of the 911 (emergency) line after she called to
report that her husband was preventing her from watching the season finale
of "Knots Landing."
**************************
(From a recent "News of the Weird" column in the San Jose Mercury News:)
In July, New Orleans police arrested Donald Simmons, 53, and Cheryl
Collins, 38, for breaking into parking meters, after videotaping the
couple's crime. The police said the two would walk along a street and
passionately embrace every few yards but that that was a ruse. In reality,
there was a parking meter between them, and Simmons would open it with a
key and slip the money to Collins, who would put it into a bag under her
skirt - all in about 12 seconds time.
**************************
(From today's "News of the Weird" in the San Jose Mercury News:)
Ed Stevens, public school superintendent in Duncanville, Texas, resigned in
July after a Dallas TV station filmed him visiting several adult bookstores
and theaters during work hours. Stevens said he went to those places (some
of which he visited for several hours at a time) purely to investigate
allegations that some of his colleagues were there.
----------------------------------------------------
From the following are from Lindsay Cleveland's newsgroup, dsc.cuties:
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Contributed by: ihuxi!ixn5c!ihldt!ll1!sb1!burl!mhuxv!mhuxi!mhuxj!mhuxt!eagle!harpo!decvax!ittvax!neiman
Name: Dan Neiman
Tell me why the stars do shine,
Tell me why the ivy twines,
Tell me what makes skies so blue,
And I'll tell you why I love you.
Nuclear fusion makes stars to shine,
Tropisms make the ivy twine,
Raleigh scattering make skies so blue,
Testicular hormones are why I love you.
From Isaac Asimov's Joke book.
The first verse is rhetorical, the second
is from an MIT student.
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Contributed by: ihuxi!ixn5c!ihldt!ll1!sb1!burl!mhuxv!mhuxi!cbosgd!npois!npoiv!harpo!decvax!utzoo!watmath!rtris
An agency doing some research into juvenile delinquency decided to phone
a "representative" number of households around 10:00 PM and ask if the
parents knew where their children were.
Well, at around half the numbers they called, they got kids on the phone
who hadn't the foggiest clue where their parents were!
(Honest!)
Ralph.
**************************
How long will it be before there is no quietness anywhere, no
escape from the rumble and the crash, the clank and the screech
which seem to be the inevitable accompaniment of technology?
Whatever man does or produces, noise seems to be an unavoidable
by-product. Perhaps he can, as he now tends to believe, do
anything. But he cannot do it quietly.
-- Joseph Wood Krutch
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Contributed by: E.G. Baldwin wegdcb!gcegb
SOUR JAPES?
Puns are never appreciated
By the so-called intelligentsia;
When you make a pun in their presence
They consider you a form of dementia.
I've decided to dismiss their sneering,
For after all is said and done,
The reason they scorn we "pundits"----
They're incapable of creating one.
--Peter Lind Hayes, WSJ, 10/10/83
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When Bismark was Prussian Ambassador at the Court of Alexander II
in the early 1860's, he looked out of a window in the Peterhof
Palace and saw a sentry on duty in the middle of the lawn. He
asked the Czar why the man was there. The Czar asked his
aide-de-camp. The aide-de-camp did not know. The commanding
general was summoned. "General, why is that soldier stationed in
that isolated place?" asked the Czar.
"I beg leave to inform your Majesty that it is in accordance with
ancient custom."
"What is the origin of the custom?" put in Bismark.
"I do not recollect at present," answered the general.
"Investigate and report the result," ordered Alexander.
The investigation took three days. They found that the sentry
was posted there by an order put on the books eighty years before!
Records showed that one morning in the spring of 1780, Catherine
the Great, who ruled Russia at the time, looked on that lawn and saw
the first flower thrusting above the frozen soil. She ordered a
sentry to be posted to prevent anyone from picking the flower. And
in 1860 there was still a sentry on the lawn -- a memorial to
habit, custom, or just everyone's saying, "But we've always done it
just that way."
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Contributed by: ihuxi!ixn5c!ihldt!ihtnt!rkj
Name: R. K. Janka
After the dust had settled from the Israeli drive
through Lebannon in which about 90 Syrian jets were
shot down compared to zero Israeli planes downed,
the Syrian defense minister went to Moscow. He requested
a new shipment of missles, to which the Soviet defense
minister asked, "What is wrong with the missles we sent
you?" The Syrian replied, "Those were all surface-to-air
missles. We need surface-to-plane missles."
**************************
Contributed by: ihuxi!ixn5c!ihldt!ll1!sb1!sb6!lhs1
Cohen's Law:
There is no bottom to worse.
Crenna's Law of Political Accountability:
If you are the first to know about something bad, you are going to
be held responsible for acting on it, regardless of your formal
duties.
Gomme's Laws:
(1) A backscratcher will always find new itches.
(2) Time accelerates.
(3) The weather at home improves as soon as you go away.
Gunter's Airborne Discoveries:
(1) When you are served a meal aboard an aircraft, the aircraft
will encounter turbulence.
(2) The strength of the turbulence is directly proportional to
the temperature of you coffee.
Hale Mail Rule, The:
When you are ready to reply to a letter, you will lack at least
one of the following:
(a) A pen or pencil or typewriter.
(b) Stationery.
(c) Postage stamp.
(d) The letter you are answering.
Hawkeye's Conclusion:
It's not easy to play the clown when you've got to run the
whole circus.
Hempstone's Question:
If you have to travel on the Titanic, why not go first class?
Hewett's Observation:
The rudeness of a bureaucrat is inversely proportional to his
or her position in the governmental hierachy and to the
number of peers similarly engaged.
Hitchcock's Staple Principle:
The stapler runs out of staples only while you are trying
to staple something.
Hoffer's Discovery:
The grand act of a dying institution is to issue a newly
revised, enlarged edition of the policies and procedures manual.
Immutability, Three Rules of:
(1) If a tarpaulin can flap, it will.
(2) If a small boy can get dirty, he will.
(3) If a teenager can go out, he will.
McEwan's Rule of Relative Importance:
When traveling with a herd of elephants, don't be the first
to lie down and rest.
Miller's Slogan:
Lose a few, lose a few.
Mix's Law:
There is nothing more permanent than a temporary building.
There is nothing more permanent than a temporaty tax.
Udall's Fourth Law:
Any change or reform you make is going to have consequences
you don't like.
Uncle Ed's Rule of Thumb:
Never use your thumb for a rule. You'll either hit it with a
hammmer or get a splinter in it.
Larry Sikes
..!ll1!sb1!lhs
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Contributed by akgua!edb
From: McCall's, June, 1983
Title: Thin People Don't
Author: Barbara Florio Graham
I read every diet I can get my hands on. I even follow their
suggestions. But eventually, inevitably, I always get fat again.
Now, at last, I've found The Answer. After living for almost 14 years
with a man who never gains an ounce no matter what I serve him, I've
found out what it is that keeps him thin: He thinks differently.
The real difference between fat and thin people is that thin
people:
avoid eating popcorn in the movies because it gets their hands greasy;
split a large combination pizza with three friends;
think Oreo cookies are for kids;
nibble cashews one at a time;
think that doughnuts are indigestible;
read books they have to hold with both hands;
become so absorbed in a weekend project they forget to have lunch;
fill the candy dish on their desks with paper clips;
counteract the midafternoon slump with a nap instead of a cinnamon
Danish;
exchange the deep-fryer they received for Christmas for a clock-radio;
lose their appetites when they're depressed;
think chocolate Easter bunnies are for kids;
prefer "The Joy of Sex" to "The Joy of Cooking";
save leftovers that are too skimpy to use for another meal in order
to make interesting soups;
throw out stale potato chips;
will eat only Swiss or Dutch chocolate, which cannot be found except
in a special store;
think it's too much trouble to stop at a special store just to buy
chocolate;
don't celebrate with a hot-fudge sundae every time they lose a pound;
warm up after skiing with black coffee instead of hot chocolate and
whipped cream;
try all the salads at the buffet, leaving room for only one dessert;
find iced tea more refreshing than an ice-cream soda;
get into such interesting conversations at cocktail parties that they
never quite work their way over to the hors-d'oeuvre table;
have no compulsion to keep the candy dish symmetrical by reducing the
jelly beans to an equal number of each color;
think that topping brownies with ice cream makes too rich a dessert;
bring four cookies into the TV room instead of a box;
think banana splits are for kids.
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----------------------------------------------------
From rec.arts.startrek.current:
From: MBS116@psuvm.psu.edu (Michael B. Smith)
Subject: Top Ten Picard List
The TOP TEN Favorite Activities of Capt. Jean-Luc Picard...enjoy
----------------------------------------------------------------
3. Ticking off Romulan commanders during tense confrontations in the Neutral
Zone by asking "Are those Bugle Boy jeans you're wearing?"
2. telling crewmembers in menacing, Dirty Harry voice, "Go ahead, Make it
so"
1. putting banana peels on the transporter pads just before an away team
beams back up
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From: bernie.wong@canrem.com (bernie wong)
Q: How many people in TNG does it take to screw a lightbulb?
A: Nine.
A light blub in the bridge dies.
Riker : GEORDI--WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!
Picard: Someone remove the lightbulb. Conference!
In the Conference room.
Troi : (putting her hand on the dead bulb) I feel... pain.
Worf : The bulb is useless now, Captain. Let me dispose of it.
(unholsters phaser and adjusts it to "OBLITERATE" setting)
Data : (thinking about what Worf said) Captain, if I were to
become non-functional like this bulb, would I receive
a regular burial or would I be disposed of like...
Picard: Shut up, Data. Hold your fire, Mr. Worf. Where is Mr.
LaForge?
Geordi: (stepping into the room) Here, Captain. I'm afraid we're
out of light bulbs. Who needs light anyway? With my VISOR,
I can clearly see despite the absence of visible light.
Bev : I can surgically remove everyone's eyes and outfit us all
with VISORs...
Wes : No way, Mom. Wait! I got it! I'll build us a positronic
krigga-wave-condensing incandescent light generator!
Riker : Excellent, Wes. BTW, WHAT THE HELL are you doing in this
meeting? This is for senior officers only! Worf, put
Ensign Crusher in the brig!
Worf : (To Wes, grinning) You will walk or I will carry you!
Bev : You're not touching my son!
Everyone lurches. Outside, two Borg ships begin attacking the
Enterprise. Everyone rushes to the bridge. Q suddenly appears on
the bridge.
Picard: Q! End this!
Q : Temper temper, mon capitan. Can't you humans take a joke?
(snaps fingers--Borg ships disappear)
Picard: I didn't mean the Borg ships--I meant the light bulb!
Q : Oh. Sorry (snaps fingers again--bulb is restored). Until
next time! (flash of light--Q disappears)
Picard: (hands restored bulb to Wes) prepare to screw light bulb.
Wes : Aye, Captain (holds bulb in position over bulb socket)
Picard: Engage!
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