Floppyshop 2/Floppyshop - 2.zip/Floppyshop - 2.iso/diskmags/0022-3.564/dmg-0138/miscell9.txt

Internet Message Format | 1997-04-16 | 16KB

From: [e-mail] (Kee Hinckley)
My father told me this one, as he heard it from one of the parents.

One day their daughter comes home from third grade all excited.
Her teacher has been telling the class all about how women are the
equals of men, and that they should receive equal pay for equal
work.  She's all excited and she goes on and on telling her parents
about this.  Finally she says, "Daddy, when you become president you
should pass a law that says that women should be paid the same as men!".
At this point her mother says, "Maybe I should do it when *I* become
president.".  To which their daughter replies, "Don't be silly Mommy,
*women* can't be presidents!".

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Contributed by: ihps3!ihuxv!aark

Many people don't know that Johann Sebastian Bach, besides being
a famous organist and composer, was also the best organ builder
of his time.  His organs were beautifully crafted and sheer joy
to play.  It was universally agreed, though, that what really
set his organs apart from all the other organ builder's instruments
was the exquisite tonal beauty and variety of the stops on his
organs.  (For those who don't know, an organ stop is a single set
or rank of pipes that spans the whole keyboard.  A pipe organ
typically has many stops, each with a different tonal quality,
thus affording the organ great versatility in the way it sounds.)
Consequently, everyone wanted a Bach organ, and all the other
organ builders were being driven out of business.

The other organ builders tried and tried to learn Bach's secret
method for building such beautiful stops.  He refused to tell
it.  He was so jealous that he even refused to let the others
examine the pipes he made, fearing they would be able to
figure out his secret.  Desperate, the organ builders met to
try to figure out a way to get their hands on some of the stops.
Various suggestions were made and rejected.  Finally, one of
them got a brilliant idea.  "Why not announce a contest?" he
said.  "We'll give a prize to anyone who sends in two Bach stops!"

(Scott Gellerman contributed this "ain't it the truth!" line from comedian
George CArlin:)

All the drivers driving slower than you are idiots, and all the drivers going
faster are maniacs.

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"I'm not paranoid ... but I'm terrified of BECOMING paranoid!"

                      Ziggy

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Although history has long forgotten them, Lambini & Sons are generally credited
 with the Sistine Chapel floor.

                            Gary Larson, "The Far Side"

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(From the February issue of Consumer Reports magazine:)

A printed advertisement for Dunkin' Donuts:

                            Free
                       3 Muffins when you
                       buy 3 at the regular
                       1/2 dozen price

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Q. Why is rowing the best type of training if you want to be a politician ?

A. Becauce you face one way and go the other.

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Selection from Brad's collection:

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From: an@??.UUCP

    That money talks, I'll not deny.
    I heard it once.  It said "good-bye".

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From: [e-mail] (Eric)
Subject: Product advertising claim

    [This is original.]

    There is a CD out entitled "The Worst of Jefferson Airplane".  If you
    buy this, take it home, play it, and enjoy it, should you take it back
    and demand a refund?

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From: [e-mail] (Bill White)
Subject: Mathematics, original (as far as I know!)

Q: What's a polar bear?

A: A rectangular bear after a coordinate transform.

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From: [e-mail] (Steve Penoncello)
Subject: Medical survey results

      Heard on Leno's monologue a few weeks ago:

       The New England Journal of Medicine reports that 9 out of 10
       doctors agree that 1 out of 10 doctors is an idiot.

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From: [e-mail] (David Purdue)
Subject: The wonders of modern technology!

Have you seen the latest Japanese camera? Apparently it is so
fast it can photograph an American with his mouth shut!

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From: [e-mail] (Jordan Kare)
Subject: Making a Killing (Original)

The price of political asassinations in Eastern Europe
has dropped by a factor of two in recent weeks.

It seems the KGB is going out of business, so they're
having a liquidation sale.

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From: [e-mail] (Mary.Nelson)
Subject: work (lack of)

I clipped this Frank and Ernest comic out of the paper about a year ago:

Ernest asks Frank how long he has been working for the company.  "Ever since
they threatened to fire me," Frnak replied.

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From: [e-mail] (David Sherman)
Subject: cut here (from a recent Usenet posting)

--------- if you cut here, you'll probably destroy your monitor ----------

(source code appeared next)

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: answering machine message [original]

Now I lay me down to sleep;
Leave a message at the beep.
If I die before I wake,
Remember to erase the tape.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: Robotic life

A cartoon in Thrust magazine by Teddy Harvia:
The scene depicts two robots. One robot is lying supine on
a couch and the second robot is sitting on a chair facing the couch.
The second robot is grasping a notebook and pencil and is saying,
"When did you first realize you hated your manufacturer?".

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From: [e-mail] (Duane Eitzen)
Subject: An excerpt from Tehran University catalogue:

ENGL 323: English Literature
  This course will concentrate on critical analysis of various
        works from Britain, Canada and the United States. Knowledge of
        the English language is not required but experience with plastic
        explosives is recommended. This course is not open to students who have
        martered themselves in previous offerings from this department.

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From: Robert H Sperry:Wbst128

Once of the stories in the last anthology of antecdotes reminded me of
one that I was told several years ago by a Century Data technician.
The Century Data T-300 disk drive is a large drive using 1970's technology.
The platters in this drive are removable, and cost on the order of $2,000.
The eighteen heads fly above the platters on a thin film of air, generated
by the aerodynamics of the disk spinning past the heads and the air flow
within the enclosure. The gap between the heads and the platters in only
microns, so for this whole scheme to work the air inside of the enclosure
must be clean and dust free. The T-300 drive furnishes a large volume of
clean air be drawing it in from the intake vents located at the bottom of
the cabinet and passing it through an absolute filter, which removes
particles as small as a micron or two. This filter must be replaced on a
regular basis, or the air flow will cease, and the heads will no longer fly,
and catastrophy (i.e. a had crash) occurs. The CE told me about some T-300
drives which were located in a data processing center, that had a head crash.
He fixed the drives and returned them to service and informed the people
at the data center of the necessity of replacing the filters on semi-annual
basis. A few weeks latter he was back there with the same problem; again
the filters were clogged with dirt. This who process repeated several times
in the following months. Finally, the culprit was found. The janitor had
discovered that by sweeping the dust under the drives, it was not necessary
to get out the dust pan. He had found his own set of vacumn cleaners.


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From: Donald P Grantham:DlosLV300

Re:  your computer foul-up stories.  I supported Xerox Visual Type, which used
 the Diablo series 30 disk drives.  LA (Calif.) County Purchasing complained of
 disk errors,  Long study showed that the disk packs showed errors, but only on
 Mondays.  Furtherr checks: only on the FIRST Monday of the month, and then only
 on 30% of the packs.

Troubleshooting by our local techs revealed squat.  They sent me (more to get me
 out of their hair than anything else).  I stayed in the offoce over the
 weekend, and, upon returning from dinner on Sunday evening, found the clean-up
 crew finishing up.  Waxing the floor.  Swinging this huge floor-buffer across
 the floor, and up to the cabinets which housed the archive disk packs.  The
 entire bottom row (the aforementioned 30%) was totally erased by the magnetic
 field of the buffer.

Ergo, Dirt Is Good.

Zeke


From: [e-mail] (Anthony DeBoer)

I heard this from my brother, who is a Search and Rescue pilot at Canadian
Forces Base Bagotville, Quebec.  It's an apocryphal story that allegedly
happened late one night during bad weather, as heard over the tower radio:

Helicopter Pilot: "Roger, I'm holding at 3000 over <such-and-such> beacon".

Second voice: "NO!  You can't be doing that!  _I'm_ holding at 3000 over
that beacon!"

(brief pause, then first voice again): "You idiot, you're my co-pilot."

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This joke can actually be attributed to the Irish Premiere, who was asked
"What do you think of the Audi 80?", and replied "I'm sure at least some
of them are innocent."

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Denny's resturants are also open 24 hours a day.  When they decided to close
last Christmas (first time ever), they realized that a lot of doors did
not have locks, most of those that did have locks, no one knew where to
find the keys!

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news of the weird

Wrong place, wrong time

Four teen-agers were arrested in the parking lot of a large mall in
Lakeland, Fla., just before Christmas when, attempting to steal an
automobile at random, they tried to break into a police van containing three
officers on a stakeout.

Gene Robinson, 24, was arrested in Dayton, Tenn., after having sat for part
of a session as a member of a grand jury hearing drug cases.  He had already
voted on 20 indictments when the next name that came up was his.  He raised
his hand, said, "That's me," and excused himself.  His fellow members
indicted him, and police arrested him at his home a short time later.

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Not exactly a bank-robber story, but ....

Several years ago, in Denver Colorado, a man went to H&R Block
with this story:  Twenty years ago, he had gotten out of prison
and had trouble when people found out he was an ex-con.  So he
changed his name and moved to where they didn't know him.
People would eventually find out, so he kept moving and changing
his name.  In all that time, he had not paid his taxes.  Now he
was doing very well and he was tired of moving all the time.  He
wanted H&RBlock to figure out what he owed in back taxes so he
could settle down.  H&R Block took his list of names and
addresses and old jobs and did several months of research for
him.  When they got all the forms filled out, he sent the forms
and alot of *cash* to the IRS and then skipped town without paying
H&R Block.  The people at that office of H&R Block thought this
was so funny that they put the story in the Denver paper.

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Faced with economic pressures, many commercial offices are cutting back on
costs wherever possible, in an attempt to remain profitable.

At one particular office, employees are taking management's belt-tightening
orders seriously:

"I'm taking home only half the office supplies I used to", one staffer notes.

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Heard in an interview with George Will on WSB Radio, Atlanta:

Caller: "What do you think about football?"

Will: "Football is a mistake.  It combines the two worst elements of American
life.  Violence and committee meetings."

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At one time, there was a Sea Scout camp outside Norfolk, Va., that was so
close to the beach the porpoises used to swim into shore at dinnertime.
The camp's chef would announce the meal by yelling, "Chow time!  For all in
tents -- and porpoises!"

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Another organically grown entry for rec.humus.  Only natural punchlines
are used in my jokes, and no antibiotics now that the infection has gone
down.

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   Years ago, I saw a show put on by Red Skelton, who asked:

    "Did you ever wonder where poeple in hell tell people to go?"

     And from way in the back of the auditorium, there came a shout:

      "Detroit!"

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Speaking of religion and cricket in the same breath :

Apparently the French have a saying that since the English have never
been particularly religious, they invented cricket to give themselves
some idea of the notion of Eternity.

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There are big signs in Myer at the moment proclaiming "Daylight Savings".
Knowing their usual pricing, I reckon they should read "Daylight Robbery".

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I found this warning on a small utility knife in MIT's lab supply:

Caution.  Blade is sharp.  Keep out of children.

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Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives,
        stop thinking and go on.
                --Andrew Jackson

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Chris Biagini:  In the category of governmentese, this is from an EPA report.

"The carcinogenic response observed in humans has a biological basis, although
the precise mechanisms are only vaguely understood."

My translation:  We haven't the foggiest notion of what's going on.

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From: [e-mail] (CT Hart)

   Many years ago, my father borrowed my car for a trip to Denver.
   He returned, sheepishly explaining that while it was parked in
   a public lot, someone had smashed out the back window with a
   2x4 and stolen everything in the back seat...

   You guessed it - the thieves got two boxes of trash and a dead
   battery.  And I got a perfectly good 2x4.

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I was watching TV a couple of nights ago, there was a reasonably
interesting talkshow going on. They were interviewing someone who
believed he was immoratal. The interview went something like this:

Q: So you believe you're immortal?
A: Yes, I do, I cannot die.
Q: You mean you'll reincarnate?
A: No, I mean it as I say it, I will not die.
Q: Are there other immortal people?
A: Yes, there used to be.
Q: You mean they're dead now?
A: Yeah, they all died.

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