o Something went wrong in jet crash, experts says
o Police begin campaign to run down jaywalkers
o Safety Experts say school bus passengers should be belted
o Drunk gets nine months in violin case
o Survivor of siamese twins joins parents
o Farmer Bill dies in house
o Iraqi head seeks arms
o Is there a ring of debris around Uranus?
o Stud tires out
o Prostitutes appeal to Pope
o Panda mating fails; Veterinarian takes over
o Soviet virgin lands short of goal again
o British left waffles on Falkland Islands
o Eye drops off shelf
o Teacher strikes idle kids
o Reagan wins on budget, but more lies ahead
o Squad helps dog bite victim
o Shot off woman's leg helps Nicklaus to 66
o Enraged cow injures farmer with ax
o Plane too close to ground, crash probe told
o Miners refuse to work after death
o Juvenile court to try shooting defendant
o Stolen painting found by tree
o Two soviet ships collide, one dies
o 2 sisters reunited after 18 years in checkout counter
o Killer sentenced to die for second time in 10 years
o Never withhold herpes infection from loved one
o Drunken drivers paid $1000 in '84
o War dims hope for peace
o If strike isn't settled quickly, it may last a while
o Cold wave linked to temperatures
o Enfiels couple slain; Police suspect homicide

He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.
(Joseph Romm, Washington)

She caught your eye like one of those pointy hook latches that used to dangle from screen doors and would fly up whenever you banged the door open again.
(Rich Murphy, Fairfax Station)

The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't. (Russell Beland, Springfield)

McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty Bag filled with vegetable soup. (Paul Sabourin, Silver Spring)

From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and "Jeopardy" comes on at 7 p.m. instead of 7:30. (Roy Ashley, Washington)

Her hair glistened in the rain like nose hair after a sneeze. (Chuck Smith, Woodbridge)

Her eyes were like two brown circles with big black dots in the center. (Russell Beland, Springfield)

Bob was as perplexed as a hacker who means to access T:flw.quid55328.com\aaakk/ch@ung but gets T:\flw.quidaaakk/ch@ung by mistake (Ken Krattenmaker, Landover Hills)

Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever. (Unknown)

He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree. (Jack Bross, Chevy Chase)

The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease. (Gary F. Hevel, Silver Spring)

Her date was pleasant enough, but she knew that if her life was a movie this guy would be buried in the credits as something like "Second Tall Man." (Russell Beland, Springfield)

Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m.traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph. (Jennifer Hart, Arlington)

The politician was gone but unnoticed, like the period after the Dr. on a Dr Pepper can. (Wayne Goode, Madison, Ala.)

They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth (Paul Kocak, Syracuse, N.Y.)

John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met. (Russell Beland, Springfield)

The thunder was ominous-sounding, much like the sound of a thin sheet of metal being shaken backstage during the storm scene in a play. (Barbara Fetherolf, Alexandria)

His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free (Chuck Smith, Woodbridge)

The red brick wall was the color of a brick-red Crayola crayon.

The Worst Country Songs of All Time

- Do You Love As Good As You Look?

- Here's A Quarter, Call Someone Who Cares

- If The Phone Don't Ring, Baby, You'll Know It's Me

- May The Bird Of Paradise Fly Up Your Nose

- When You Leave Walk Out Backwards, So I'll Think You're Walking In

- You Can't Have Your Kate And Edith Too

- You Can't Roller Skate In A Buffalo Herd

- You Done Tore Out My Heart And Stomped That Sucker Flat

- You Were Only A Splinter In My Ass As I Slid Down The Bannister Of Life

- You're The Reason Our Kids Are So Ugly

- Big Balls in Cowtown

- "Well the dog died when Momma went to prison..." - Steve Goodman

- I got an achin in my heart and arson on my mind .....

1) Drop Kick Me, Jesus, Through The Goalposts Of Life

2) Get Your Biscuits In The Oven And Your Buns In The Bed

3) Get Your Tongue Outta My Mouth 'Cause I'm Kissing You Goodbye

4) Her Teeth Were Stained, But Her Heart Was Pure

5) How Can I Miss You If You Won't Go Away?

6) How Can You Believe Me When I Say I Love You When You Know I've Been A Liar All My Life?

7) I Been Roped And Thrown By Jesus In The Holy Ghost Corral

8) I Changed Her Oil, She Changed My Life

9) I Don't Know Whether To Kill Myself Or Go Bowling

10) I Fell In A Pile Of You And Got Love All Over Me

11) I Flushed You From The Toilets Of My Heart.

(Note: 8 songs below, these should be sung in two part harmony!)

12) I Keep Forgettin' I Forgot About You

13) I Wanna Whip Your Cow

14) I Would Have Wrote You A Letter, But I Couldn't Spell Yuck!

15) I Wouldn't Take Her To A Dawg Fight, Cause I'm Afraid She'd Win

16) I'd Rather Have A Bottle In Front Of Me Than A Frontal Lobotomy

17) I'm Just A Bug On The Windshield Of Life

18) I'm The Only Hell Mama Ever Raised

19) I've Been Flushed From The Bathroom Of Your Heart

20) I've Got The Hungries For Your Love And I'm Waiting In Your Welfare Line

21) If I Can't Be Number One In Your Life, Then Number Two On You

22) If Love Were Oil, I'd Be A Quart Low

23) If My Nose Were Full of Nickels, I'd Blow It All On You

24) If You Don't Leave Me Alone, I'll Go And Find Someone Else Who Will

25) If You Leave Me, Can I Come Too?

26) Mama Get The Hammer (There's A Fly On Papa's Head)

27) My Every Day Silver Is Plastic

28) My Head Hurts, My Feet Stink, And I Don't Love Jesus

29) My John Deere Was Breaking Your Field, While Your Dear John Was Breaking My Heart

30) My Wife Ran Off With My Best Friend, And I Sure Do Miss Him

31) Oh, I've Got Hair Oil On My Ears And My Glasses Are Slipping Down, But Baby I Can See Through You

32) Pardon Me, I've Got Someone To Kill

33) She Got The Gold Mine And I Got The Shaft

34) She Got The Ring And I Got The Finger

35) She Made Toothpicks Out Of The Timber Of My Heart

36) She's Got Freckles On Her, But She's Pretty

37) Thank God And Greyhound She's Gone

38) They May Put Me In Prison, But They Can't Stop My Face From Breakin' Out

39) Velcro Arms, Teflon Heart

40) When You Leave Walk Out Backwards, So I'll Think You're Walking In

41) You Can't Have Your Kate And Edith Too

42) You Can't Roller Skate In A Buffalo Herd

43) You Done Tore Out My Heart And Stomped That Sucker Flat

44) You Were Only A Splinter As I Slid Down The Bannister Of Life

45) You're The Reason Our Kids Are So Ugly

- "I Gave Her a Ring and She Gave Me the Finger"

- "I Knew I'd Hit Rock Bottom, When I Woke Up On Top of You"

- "Kiss the Meatloaf Off My lips"

- "There Ain't Enough Whiskey in Tennessee to Drink the Ugly Off of you."

- "If I had to do it all over again honey, I'd do it all over you"

- She Broke My Heart: I Broke Her Jaw

- I bought the Shoes That Walked out on Me

- Her Teeth Were Stained but Her Heart Was Pure (actual song from Lubbock where too much natural fluoride in the water makes your teeth ugly)

Never Slap a Cowboy Chewing Tobacco

---

Memorable Quotations

Time is nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once.

-- Woody Allen

Sex is dirty only when it's done right.

-- Woody Allen

Reality is what refuses to go away when I stop believing in it.

-- Philip K. Dick

It's always easy to see both sides of an issue we are not particularly concerned about.

The probability of someone watching you is proportional to the stupidity of your action.

All generalizations are bad.

-- R. H. Grenier

Dyslexics of the world, untie!

Whining is anger through a small opening.

-- Stuart Smalley

Good students don't "cheat"--they verify.

It's a small world, but I wouldn't want to have to paint it.

-- Steven Wright

You can't have everything...where would you put it?

-- Steven Wright

I went to a restaurant that serves "breakfast at any time." So I ordered French Toast during the Renaissance.

-- Steven Wright

I stayed up all night playing poker with tarot cards. I got a full house and four people died.

-- Steven Wright

I put instant coffee in a microwave oven and almost went back in time.

-- Steven Wright

Right now I'm having amnesia and deja vu at the same time. I think I've forgotten this before.

-- Steven Wright

It doesn't matter what temperature the room is; it's always room temperature.

-- Steven Wright

If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.

-- Steven Wright

I don't have any solution, but I certainly admire the problem.

-- Brilliant

Inside every small problem is a large problem struggling to get out.

If you think the problem is bad now, just wait until we've solved it.

-- Kasspe

Logic is a systematic method of coming to the wrong conclusion with confidence.

-- Manly's Maxim

Complex problems have simple, easy to understand, wrong answers.

-- Grossman's Misquote

Only someone who understands something absolutely can explain it so no one else can understand it.

-- Rudnicki's Nobel Prize Principle

If you don't understand it, it must be intuitively obvious.

I wish there were a knob on the TV to turn up the intelligence. There's a knob called "brightness," but that doesn't work.

Any time you get a mouthful of hot soup, the next thing you do will be wrong.

-- Zall's First Law

How long a minute is, depends on which side of the bathroom door you're on.

-- Zall's Second Law

If it weren't for the last minute, nothing would get done.

There is no time like the present for postponing what you ought to be doing.

After your hands become coated with grease, your nose will begin to itch.

-- Lorenz's Law of Mechanical Repair

Any tool, when dropped, will roll into the least accessible corner.

-- Anthony's Law of the Workshop

Anything dropped in the bathroom falls in the toilet.

-- Flucard's Corollary

Inanimate objects are classified scientifically into three major categories: those that don't work, those that break down, and those that get lost.

-- Russell Baker

The first rule of intelligent tinkering is to save all the parts.

-- Ehrlich

If it jams, force it. If it breaks, it needed replacing anyway.

-- Lowery's Law

There is no mechanical problem so difficult that it cannot be solved by brute strength and ignorance.

-- William's Law

When all else fails, read the instructions.

-- Cann's Axiom

When you starve with a tiger, the tiger starves last.

-- Griffin's Thought

The other line moves faster.

-- Ettore's Observation

Proofreading is more effective after publication.

-- Barker

Paper is always strongest at the perforations.

-- Corry

Life is a whole series of circumstances beyond your control.

-- Van Roy's Truism

If at first you don't succeed, you're doing about average.

-- Leonard Levinson

If you do a job too well, you will get stuck with it.

-- Slous

He who hesitates is not only lost, but several miles from the next freeway exit.

-- Nowlan's Theory

It's kind of fun to do the impossible.

-- Walt Disney

To achieve the impossible, one must think the absurd; to look where everyone else has looked, but to see what no one else has seen.

98% of all statistics are made up.

It is now proved beyond doubt that smoking is one of the leading causes of statistics.

-- Fletcher Knebel

There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.

-- Benjamin Disraeli

No matter where you go, there you are.

-- Buckaroo Bonzai

In some ways we are more confused than ever, but we feel that we are confused on a higher level and about more important things.

We're making progress. Things are getting worse at a slower rate.

Things will get better despite our efforts to improve them.

-- Will Rogers

For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.

-- Harrison's Postulate

After all is said and done, much is said and little is done.

-- Olmstead

Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.

-- Olivier

The shortest distance between two points is under construction.

-- Altito

You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely.

Anything good in life is either illegal, immoral, or fattening.

-- Pardo

Needs are a function of what other people have.

-- Jone's Principle

Reach out and grep someone.

-- Back of an AT&T T-shirt

I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member.

-- Groucho Marx

I have had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it.

-- Groucho Marx

Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before.

-- Mae West

Opportunity always knocks at the least opportune moment.

-- Ducharme's Precept

Always be sincere, even when you don't mean it.

-- Irene Peter

I'll give you a definite maybe.

-- Samuel Goldwyn

Sometimes you can observe a lot by watching.

-- Yogi Berra

No wonder nobody comes here--it's too crowded.

-- Yogi Berra

Nothing can be done in one trip.

-- Snider

Almost everything in life is easier to get into than out of.

-- Agnes' Law

Nothing is as easy as it looks.

-- Murphy's First Law

Everything takes longer than you think.

-- Murphy's Second Law

Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong.

-- Murphy's Third Law

If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong.

-- Murphy's Fourth Law

If anything just cannot go wrong, it will anyway.

-- Murphy's Fifth Law

If you perceive that there are four possible ways in which a procedure can go wrong and circumvent these, then a fifth way, unprepared for, will promptly develop.

-- Murphy's Sixth Law

Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.

-- Murphy's Seventh Law

After things have gone from bad to worse, the cycle will repeat itself.

-- Farnsdick's corollary

If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.

-- Murphy's Eighth Law

Nature always sides with the hidden flaw.

-- Murphy's Ninth Law

Mother Nature is a bitch.

-- Murphy's Tenth Law

It is impossible to make anything foolproof, because fools are so ingenious.

-- Murphy's Eleventh Law

Murphy was an optimist.

-- O'Toole's Commentary

Under the most rigorously controlled conditions of pressure, temperature, volume, humidity, and other variables, the organism will do as it damn well pleases.

-- Harvard's Law

Never replicate a successful experiment.

-- Fett's Law

If an experiment works, something has gone wrong.

-- Finagle's First Law

The real world is a special case.

-- Horngren's Observation

Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing.

-- von Braun

It is easier to get forgiveness than permission.

-- Stewart's Law of Retroaction

It is not an optical illusion, it just looks like one.

-- Phil White

There are two rules for success...

1) Never tell everything you know.

-- Roger H. Lincoln

When in doubt, predict that the present trend will continue.

-- Merkin's Maxim

The right hand doesn't know that the left hand has been cut off.

-- Paul D. Schmitter

The human mind ordinarily operates at only ten percent of its capacity-- the rest is overhead for the operating system.

I haven't lost my mind; I have a tape back-up somewhere.

To iterate is human, to recurse, divine.

-- L. Peter Deutch

To understand recursion, you must first understand recursion.

MS-DOS--Just say "no"

-- David Yolt

OS/2...The nightmare continues...

If you want to make enemies, try to change something.

-- Woodrow Wilson

Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bit 'em,

And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum.

And the great fleas themselves, in turn, have greater fleas to go on;

While these again have greater still, and greater still, and so on.

-- August De Morgan

Mostly, when you see programmers, they aren't doing anything. One of the attractive things about programmers is that you cannot tell whether or not they are working simply by looking at them. Very often they're sitting there seemingly drinking coffee and gossiping, or just staring into space. What the programmer is trying to do is get a handle on all the individual and unrelated ideas that are scampering around in his head.

-- Charles M. Strauss

"Diplomacy" is letting them have it your way.

If you cannot convince them, confuse them.

-- Harry S. Truman

Things should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.

-- Albert Einstein

Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age 18.

-- Albert Einstein

Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.

A dozen, a gross, and a score,

Plus three times the square root of four,

Divided by seven,

Plus nine times eleven,

Equals nine squared plus zero, no more.

Anything that is designed to do more than one thing can't do any of them well.

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.

-- Galileo Galileo

Truth is. Belief is not required.

-- Gerry Roston

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nothing is as inevitable as a mistake whose time has come.

-- Tussman

Once I thought I was wrong, but I was mistaken.

Received by way of Nathan Mates (nathan@cco.caltech.edu)

IN THE BEGINNING
(To justify God's ways to the 21st century)

#In the beginning was the computer. And God said
:Let there be light!
#You have not signed on yet.
:God.
#Enter user password.
:Omniscient.
#Password Incorrect. Try again!
:Omnipotent.
#Password Incorrect. Try again!
:Technocrat.
#And God signed on 12:01 a.m., Sunday, March 1.
:Let there be light!
#Unrecognizable command. Try again!
:Create light.
#Done.
:Run heaven and earth.
#And God created Day and Night. And God saw there were 0 errors.
#And God signed off at 12:02 a.m., Sunday, March 1.
#Approx. funds remaining: $92.50.
#And God signed on at 12:00 a.m., Monday, March 2.
:Let there be firmament in the midst of the water and
#Unrecognizable command! Try again!
:Create firmament.
#Done.
:Run firmament.
#And God divided the waters. And God saw there were 0 errors.
#And God signed off at 12:01 a.m., Monday, March 2.
#Approx. funds remaining: $84.60.
#And God signed on at 12:00 a.m., Tuesday, March 3.
:Let the waters under heaven be gathered together unto one place
and let the dry land appear and
#Too many characters in string specification! Try again.
:Create dryland.
#Done!
:Run dryland.
#And God created Earth and Seas. And God saw there were 0 errors.
#And God signed off at 12:01 a.m., Tuesday, March 3.
#Approx. funds remaining: $65.00.
#And God signed on at 12:00 a.m., Wednesday, March 4.
:Create lights in the firmament to divide the day from the night.
#Unspecified type. Try again!
:Create sunmoonstars.
#And God created Sun, Moon, Stars. And God saw there were 0 errors.
#And God signed off at 12:01 a.m., Wednesday, March 4.
#Approx. funds remaining: $54:00.
#And God signed on at 12:00 a.m., Thursday, March 5.
:Create fish.
#Done.
:Create fowl.
#Done.
:Run fish'nfowl.
#And God created the great seamonsters and every living creature
that creepeth wherewith the waters swarmed after its kind and
every winged fowl after its kind. 0 errors.
#And God signed off at 12:01 a.m., Thursday, March 5.
#Approx. funds remaining: $45.00.
#And God signed on at 12:00 a.m., Friday, March 6.
:Create cattle.
#Done.
:Create creepy things.
#Done.
:Now let us make man in our image.
#Unspecified type! Try again.
:Create man.
#Done.
:Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it
and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over of the fowl
of the air and over every living thing that creepeth upon the
earth.
#Too many command operands! Try again.
:Run multiplication.
#Execution terminated. 6 errors.
:Insert breath.
#O.K.
:Run multiplication.
#Execution terminated. 5 errors.
:Move man to Garden of Eden.
#File Garden of Eden does not exist.
:Create Gard.En.
#Done.
:Move man to Gard.En.
#O.K.
:Run multiplication.
#Execution terminated. 4 errors.
:Copy woman from man.
#O.K.
:Run multiplication.
#Execution terminated. 3 errors.
:Insert woman into man.
#Illegal parameters. Try again!
:Insert man into woman.
#O.K.
:Run multiplication.
#Execution terminated. 2 errors.
:Create desire.
#Done.
:Run multiplication.
#And God saw man'nwoman being fruitful and multiplying in the Gard.En.
#Warning: No time limit on this run. 1 errors.
:Create freewill.
#Done.
:Run freewill.
#And God saw man'nwoman being fruitful and multiplying in the Gard.En.
#Warning: No time limit on this run. 1 errors.
:Undo desire.
#Desire cannot be undone once freewill is created.
:Destroy freewill.
#Freewill is an inaccessible file and cannot be destroyed.
#Enter replacement, cancel, or ask for help.
:Help!
#Desire cannot be undone once freewill is created.
#Freewill is an inaccessible file and cannot be destroyed.
#Enter replacement, cancel, or ask for help.
:Create Treeofknowledge.
#And God saw man'nwoman being fruitful and multiplying in the Gard.En.
#Warning: No time limit on this run. 1 errors.
:Create good'nevil.
#Done.
:Activate evil.
#And God saw he had created shame.
#Warning: System error in sector E95. Man'nwoman not in Gard.En.
#1 errors.
:Scan Gard.En. for man'nwoman.
#Man'nwoman cannot be located. Try again!
:Search Gard.En. for man'nwoman.
#Search failed.
:Delete shame.
#Shame cannot be deleted once evil has been activated.
:Destroy freewill.
#Freewill an inaccessible file and cannot be destroyed.
:Stop!
#Unrecognizable command. Try again.
:Break
:Break
:Break
#ATTENTION ALL USERS ATTENTION ALL USERS: COMPUTER GOING DOWN FOR
REGULAR DAY OF MAINTENANCE AND REST IN FIVE MINUTES. PLEASE
SIGN OFF.
:Create new world.
#You have exceeded your allotted file space. You must destroy
old files before new ones can be created.
:Destroy earth.
#Destroy earth. Please confirm.
:Destroy earth confirmed.
#COMPUTER DOWN. COMPUTER DOWN. SERVICES WILL RESUME ON SUNDAY
MARCH 8 AT 6:00 A.M. YOU MUST SIGN OFF NOW!
#And God signed off at 11:59 p.m., Friday, March 6.
#And God saw he had zero funds remaining.

---

---

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Monday, 23-Dec-2002 21:56:21 EST