These entries are items that I have found circulating on the Internet without attribution, and have seen others forward or request often enough that I decided they qualified as "classics". If I have mistakenly posted copyrighted material, please let me know -- with pointers to the actual source.

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• The Worst Ads
• The Worst Headlines
• The Worst Analogies
• The Worst Country Songs
• Memorable Quotes

Why I like Tripod [an error occurred while processing this directive]

Unedited Advertisements

2 female Boston Terrier puppies, 7 wks old, Perfect markings, 555-1234. Leave mess.

Lost: small apricot poodle. Reward. Neutered. Like one of the family.

A superb and inexpensive restaurant. Fine food expertly served by waitresses in appetizing forms.

Dinner Special -- Turkey $2.35; Chicken or Beef $2.25; Children $2.00.

For sale: an antique desk suitable for lady with thick legs and large drawers.

Four-poster bed, 101 years old. Perfect for antique lover.

Now is your chance to have your ears pierced and get an extra pair to take home, too.

Wanted: 50 girls for stripping machine operators in factory.

Wanted: Unmarried girls to pick fresh fruit and produce at night.

We do not tear your clothing with machinery. We do it carefully by hand.

For Sale. Three canaries of undermined sex.

For Sale -- Eight puppies from a German Shepperd and an Alaskan Hussy.

Great Dames for sale.

Have several very old dresses from grandmother in beautiful condition.

Tired of cleaning yourself? Let me do it.

Dog for sale: eats anything and is fond of children.

Vacation Special: have your home exterminated.

If you think you've seen everything in Paris, visit the Pere Lachasis Cemetery. It boasts such immortals as Moliere, Jean de la Fontain, and Chopin.

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The hotel has bowling alleys, tennis courts, comfortable beds, and other athletic facilities.

Get rid of aunts: Zap does the job in 24 hours.

Toaster: A gift that every member of the family appreciates. Automatically burns toast.

Sheer stockings. Designed for fancy dress, but so serviceable that lots of women wear nothing else.

Stock up and save. Limit: one.

We build bodies that last a lifetime.

For Rent: 6-room hated apartment.

Man, honest. Will take anything.

Man wanted to work in dynamite factory. Must be willing to travel.

UsedCars: Why go elsewhere to be cheated? Come here first!

Christmas tag-sale. Handmade gifts for the hard-to-find person.

Modular Sofas. Only $299. For rest or fore play.

Wanted: Hair-cutter. Excellent growth potential.

Wanted. Man to take care of cow that does not smoke or drink.

3-year-old teacher need for pre-school. Experience preferred.

Our experienced Mom will care for your child. Fenced yard, meals, and smacks included.

Our bikinis are exciting. They are simply the tops.

Auto Repair Service. Free pick-up and delivery. Try us once, you'll never go anywhere again.

Holcross pullets. Starting to lay Betty Clayton, Granite 5-6204.

Illiterate? Write today for free help.

Girl wanted to assist magician in cutting-off-head illusion. Blue Cross and salary.

Wanted. Widower with school-age children requires person to assume general housekeeping duties. Must be capable of contributing to growth of family.

Mixing bowl set designed to please a cook with round bottom for efficient beating.

Semi-Annual after-Christmas Sale.

And now, the Superstore--unequaled in size, unmatched in variety, unrivaled inconvenience.

We will oil your sewing machine and adjust tension in your home for $1.00.

Should-Have-Been-Edited Headlines - ACTUAL NEWSPAPER HEADLINES

Firm Grasp of the Obvious Department

From the Notebook pages of The New Republic 1995:

Study Finds Sex, Pregnancy Link

Cornell Daily Sun, December 7, 1995

Whatever Their motives, Moms Who Kill Kids still Shock Us

Holland Sentinal, date unknown.

Survey Finds Dirtier Subways After Cleaning Jobs Were Cut

The New York Times, November 22

Larger Kangaroos Leap Farther, Researchers Find

The Los Angeles Times, November 2

'Light' meals are lower in fat, calories

Huntington Herald-Dispatch, November 30

Alcohol ads promote drinking

The Hartford Courant, November 18

Malls try to attract shoppers

The Baltimore Sun, October 22

Official: Only rain will cure drought

The Herald-News, Westpost, Massachusetts

Teen-age girls often have babies fathered by men

The Sunday Oregonian, September 24

Low Wages Said Key to Poverty

Newsday, July 11

Man shoots neighbor with machete

The Miami Herald, July 3

Tomatoes come in big, little, medium sizes

The Daily Progress, Charlottesville, Virginia, March 30

Dirty-Air Cities Far Deadlier Than Clean Ones, Study Shows

The New York Times, March 10

Man Run Over by Freight Train Dies

The Los Angeles Times, March 2

Scientists see quakes in L.A. future

The Oregonian, January 28

Wachtler tells graduates that life in jail is demeaning

The Buffalo News, February 26

Free Advice: Bundle up when out in the cold

Lexington Herald-Leader, January 26

Prosecution paints O.J. as a wife-killer

Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, January 25

Economist uses theory to explain economy

Collinsville Herald-Journal, February 8

Bible church's focus is the Bible

Saint Augustine Record, Florida, December 3, 1994

Clinton pledges restraint in use of nuclear weapons

Cedar Rapids Gazette, April 6

Discoveries: Older blacks have edge in longevity

The Chicago Tribune, March 5

Court Rules Boxer Shorts Are Indeed Underwear

Journal of Commerce, April 20

Biting nails can be sign of tenseness in a person

The Daily Gazette of Schenectady, New York, May 2

Lack of brains hinders research

The Columbus Dispatch, April 16

How we feel about ourselves is the core of self-esteem, says author Louise Hart

Boulder, Colorado, Sunday Camera, February 5

Fish lurk in streams

Rochester, New York, Democrat & Chronicle, January 29

The Worst Analogies in One of Those Stretches of Time that Seems Very Long because it is Just Like a Very Long Stretch of Time
Winners of the "worst analogies ever written in a high school essay" contest.

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)

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Thursday, 17-Jan-2002 07:41:38 EST