ching it. We ARE as gods and might as well get good at it. -- Whole Earth Catalog We are confronted with insurmountable opportunities. -- Walt Kelly, "Pogo" We are confronted with insurmountable opportunities. -- Walt Kelly, "Pogo" We can defeat gravity. The problem is the paperwork involved. "We don't care. We don't have to. We're the Phone Company." We don't understand the software, and sometimes we don't understand the hardware, but we can *___see* the blinking lights! We have met the enemy, and he is us. -- Walt Kelly "We have reason to believe that man first walked upright to free his hands for masturbation." -- Lily Tomlin We may not return the affection of those who like us, but we always respect their good judgement. We must remember the First Amendment which protects any shrill jackass no matter how self-seeking. -- F. G. Withington We really don't have any enemies. It's just that some of our best friends are trying to kill us. We were young and our happiness dazzled us with its strength. But there was also a terrible betrayal that lay within me like a Merle Haggard song at a French restaurant. ... I could not tell the girl about the woman of the tollway, of her milk white BMW and her Jordache smile. There had been a fight. I had punched her boyfriend, who fought the mechanical bulls. Everyone told him, "You ride the bull, senor. You do not fight it." But he was lean and tough like a bad rib-eye and he fought the bull. And then he fought me. And when we finished there were no winners, just men doing what men must do. ... "Stop the car," the girl said. There was a look of terrible sadness in her eyes. She knew about the woman of the tollway. I knew not how. I started to speak, but she raised an arm and spoke with a quiet and peace I will never forget. "I do not ask for whom's the tollway belle," she said, "the tollway belle's for thee." The next morning our youth was a memory, and our happiness was a lie. Life is like a bad margarita with good tequila, I thought as I poured whiskey onto my granola and faced a new day. -- Peter Applebome, International Imitation Hemingway Competition We will have solar energy as soon as the utility companies solve one technical problem -- how to run a sunbeam through a meter. we will invent new lullabies, new songs, new acts of love, we will cry over things we used to laugh & our new wisdom will bring tears to eyes of gentile creatures from other planets who were afraid of us till then & in the end a summer with wild winds & new friends will be. We wish you a Hare Krishna We wish you a Hare Krishna We wish you a Hare Krishna And a Sun Myung Moon! -- Maxwell Smart "We'll cross out that bridge when we come back to it later." We're deep into the holiday gift-giving season, as you can tell from the fact that everywhere you look, you see jolly old St. Nick urging you to purchase things, to the point where you want to slug him right in his bowl full of jelly. -- Dave Barry, "Simple, Homespun Gifts" We've sent a man to the moon, and that's 29,000 miles away. The center of the Earth is only 4,000 miles away. You could drive that in a week, but for some reason nobody's ever done it. -- Andy Rooney Weiler's Law: Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself. Weinberg's First Law: Progress is made on alternate Fridays. Weinberg's Principle: An expert is a person who avoids the small errors while sweeping on to the grand fallacy. Weinberg's Second Law: If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization. Weiner's Law of Libraries: There are no answers, only cross references. Well, I would -- if they realized that we -- again if -- if we led them back to that stalemate only because our retaliatory power, our seconds, or strike at them after our first strike, would be so destructive they they couldn't afford it, that would hold them off. -- President Ronald Reagan, on the MX missile "Well, if you can't believe what you read in a comic book, what *___can* you believe?!" -- Bullwinkle J. Moose [Jay Ward] Well, my terminal's locked up, and I ain't got any Mail, And I can't recall the last time that my program didn't fail; I've got stacks in my structs, I've got arrays in my queues, I've got the : Segmentation violation -- Core dumped blues. If you think that it's nice that you get what you C, Then go : illogical statement with your whole family, 'Cause the Supreme Court ain't the only place with : Bus error views. I've got the : Segmentation violation -- Core dumped blues. On a PDP-11, life should be a breeze, But with VAXen in the house even magnetic tapes would freeze. Now you might think that unlike VAXen I'd know who I abuse, I've got the : Segmentation violation -- Core dumped blues. -- Core Dumped Blues Westheimer's Discovery: A couple of months in the laboratory can frequently save a couple of hours in the library. Wethern's Law: Assumption is the mother of all screw-ups. "What do you give a man who has everything?" the pretty teenager asked her mother. "Encouragement, dear," she replied. What does it mean if there is no fortune for you? What garlic is to food, insanity is to art. What garlic is to salad, insanity is to art. What good is a ticket to the good life, if you can't find the entrance? What good is having someone who can walk on water if you don't follow in his footsteps? What I tell you three times is true. What I want is all of the power and none of the responsibility. What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists? In that case, I definitely overpaid for my carpet. -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers" What if nothing exists and we're all in somebody's dream? Or what's worse, what if only that fat guy in the third row exists? -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers" What is a magician but a practising theorist? -- Obi-Wan Kenobi What is mind? No matter. What is matter? Never mind. -- Thomas Hewitt Key, 1799-1875 What is the difference between a Turing machine and the modern computer? It's the same as that between Hillary's ascent of Everest and the establishment of a Hilton on its peak. "What is the robbing of a bank compared to the FOUNDING of a bank?" -- Bertold Brecht What is worth doing is worth the trouble of asking somebody to do. What makes the Universe so hard to comprehend is that there's nothing to compare it with. What makes the universe so hard to comprehend is that there's nothing to compare it with. What publishers are looking for these days isn't radical feminism. It's corporate feminism -- a brand of feminism designed to sell books and magazines, three-piece suits, airline tickets, Scotch, cigarettes and, most important, corporate America's message, which runs: "Yes, women were discriminated against in the past, but that unfortunate mistake has been remedied; now every woman can attain wealth, prestige and power by dint of individual rather than collective effort." -- Susan Gordon What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy? -- Ursula K. LeGuin What the hell, go ahead and put all your eggs in one basket. What the large print giveth, the small print taketh away. What this country needs is a dime that will buy a good five-cent bagel. What this country needs is a dime that will buy a good five-cent bagel. What this country needs is a good 5 dollar plasma weapon. What this country needs is a good five cent ANYTHING! What this country needs is a good five-cent nickel. What use is magic if it can't save a unicorn? -- Peter S. Beagle, "The Last Unicorn" What with chromodynamics and electroweak too Our Standardized Model should please even you, Tho once you did say that of charm there was none It took courage to switch as to say Earth moves not Sun. Yet your state of the union penultimate large Is the last known haunt of the Fractional Charge, And as you surf in the hot tub with sourdough roll Please ponder the passing of your sole Monopole. Your Olympics were fun, you should bring them all back For transsexual tennis or Anamalon Track, But Hollywood movies remain sinfully crude Whether seen on the telly or Remotely Viewed. Now fasten your sunbelts, for you've done it once more, You said it in Leipzig of the thing we adore, That you've built an incredible crystalline sphere Whose German attendants spread trembling and fear Of the death of our theory by Particle Zeta Which I'll bet is not there say your article, later. -- Sheldon Glashow, Physics Today, Dec. 1984 "What's that thing?" "Well, it's a highly technical, sensitive instrument we use in computer repair. Being a layman, you probably can't grasp exactly what it does. We call it a two-by-four." -- Jeff MacNelly, "Shoe" Whatever became of eternal truth? Whatever became of Strange de Jim? Well, he found a substitute for cocaine: "You cover Q-tips with sandpaper and ram them up your nostrils as far as they will go. Then you sniff talcum powder while shredding hundred dollar bills." -- Herb Caen Whatever is not nailed down is mine. What I can pry loose is not nailed down. -- Collis P. Huntingdon When a Banker jumps out of a window, jump after him -- that's where the money is. -- Robespierre When a fellow says, "It ain't the money but the principle of the thing," it's the money. -- Kim Hubbard When a fly lands on the ceiling, does it do a half roll or a half loop? When a place gets crowded enough to require ID's, social collapse is not far away. It is time to go elsewhere. The best thing about space travel is that it made it possible to go elsewhere. -- Robert Heinlein When a shepherd goes to kill a wolf, and takes his dog along to see the sport, he should take care to avoid mistakes. The dog has certain relationships to the wolf the shepherd may have forgotten. -- Robert Pirsig, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" When all other means of communication fail, try words. When does summertime come to Minnesota, you ask? Well, last year, I think it was a Tuesday. When God endowed human beings with brains, He did not intend to guarantee them. When I said "we", officer, I was referring to myself, the four young ladies, and, of course, the goat. When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President. Now I'm beginning to believe it. -- Clarence Darrow When I was in school, I cheated on my metaphysics exam: I looked into the soul of the boy sitting next to me. -- Woody Allen When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not; but my faculties are decaying now and soon I shall be so I cannot remember any but the things that never happened. It is sad to go to pieces like this but we all have to do it. -- Mark Twain When in doubt, do what the President does -- guess. "When in doubt, tell the truth." -- Mark Twain When in doubt, use brute force. -- Ken Thompson When love is gone, there's always justice. And when justice is gone, there's always force. And when force is gone, there's always Mom. Hi, Mom! -- Laurie Anderson When Marriage is Outlawed, Only Outlaws will have Inlaws. When more and more people are thrown out of work, unemployment results. -- Calvin Coolidge When someone says "I want a programming language in which I need only say what I wish done," give him a lollipop. "When the going gets tough, the tough get empirical" -- Jon Carroll When the government bureau's remedies do not match your problem, you modify the problem, not the remedy. When the Ngdanga tribe of West Africa hold their moon love ceremonies, the men of the tribe bang their heads on sacred trees until they get a nose bleed, which usually cures them of ____that. -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" When the Universe was not so out of whack as it is today, and all the stars were lined up in their proper places, you could easily count them from left to right, or top to bottom, and the larger and bluer ones were set apart, and the smaller yellowing types pushed off to the corners as bodies of a lower grade ... -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" When two people are under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions, they are required to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal, and exhausting condition continuously until death do them part. -- George Bernard Shaw When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary. -- Thomas Paine "When you are in it up to your ears, keep your mouth shut." When you do not know what you are doing, do it neatly. When you have shot and killed a man you have in some measure clarified your attitude toward him. You have given a definite answer to a definite problem. For better or worse you have acted decisively. In a way, the next move is up to him. -- R. A. Lafferty "When you have to kill a man it costs nothing to be polite." -- Winston Curchill, On formal declarations of war When you make your mark in the world, watch out for guys with erasers. -- The Wall Street Journal When you're away, I'm restless, lonely, Wretched, bored, dejected; only Here's the rub, my darling dear I feel the same when you are near. -- Samuel Hoffenstein, "When You're Away" When you're not looking at it, this fortune is written in FORTRAN. When you're not looking at it, this fortune is written in FORTRAN. Whenever anyone says, "theoretically", they really mean, "not really". -- Dave Parnas Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally. -- A. Lincoln Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong. --Oscar Wilde Whenever the literary German dives into a sentence, that is the last you are going to see of him until he emerges on the other side of his Atlantic with his verb in his mouth. -- Mark Twain "Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform. -- Mark Twain Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform. -- Mark Twain WHERE CAN THE MATTER BE Oh, dear, where can the matter be When it's converted to energy? There is a slight loss of parity. Johnny's so long at the fair. Where humor is concerned there are no standards -- no one can say what is good or bad, although you can be sure that everyone will. -- John Kenneth Galbraith Where there's a will, there's an Inheritance Tax. Whether you can hear it or not The Universe is laughing behind your back -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorada" While anyone can admit to themselves they were wrong, the true test is admission to someone else. While Europe's eye is fix'd on mighty things, The fate of empires and the fall of kings; While quacks of State must each produce his plan, And even children lisp the Rights of Man; Amid this mighty fuss just let me mention, The Rights of Woman merit some attention. -- Robert Burns, Address on "The Rights of Woman", November 26, 1792 While money can't buy happiness, it certainly lets you choose your own form of misery. While money doesn't buy love, it puts you in a great bargaining position. While most peoples' opinions change, the conviction of their correctness never does. While you don't greatly need the outside world, it's still very reassuring to know that it's still there. While your friend holds you affectionately by both your hands you are safe, for you can watch both of his. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" Whistler's Law: You never know who is right, but you always know who is in charge. "Who cares if it doesn't do anything? It was made with our new Triple-Iso-Bifurcated-Krypton-Gate-MOS process ..." Who made the world I cannot tell; 'Tis made, and here am I in hell. My hand, though now my knuckles bleed, I never soiled with such a deed. -- A. E. Housman Who needs friends when you can sit alone in your room and drink? Who's on first? Whom computers would destroy, they must first drive mad. "Why be a man when you can be a success?" -- Bertold Brecht Why did the Lord give us so much quickness of movement unless it was to avoid responsibility with? Why did the Roman Empire collapse? What is the Latin for office automation? Why does man kill? He kills for food. And not only food: frequently there must be a beverage. -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers" Why I Can't Go Out With You: I'd LOVE to, but ... -- I have to floss my cat. -- I've dedicated my life to linguini. -- I need to spend more time with my blender. -- it wouldn't be fair to the other Beautiful People. -- it's my night to pet the dog/ferret/goldfish. -- I'm going downtown to try on some gloves. -- I have to check the freshness dates on my dairy products. -- I'm going down to the bakery to watch the buns rise. -- I have an appointment with a cuticle specialist. -- I have some really hard words to look up. -- I've got a Friends of the Lowly Rutabaga meeting. -- I promised to help a friend fold road maps. "Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved" -- Mark Twain "Why isn't there a special name for the tops of your feet?" -- Lily Tomlin Why not have an old-fashioned Christmas for your family this year? Just picture the scene in your living room on Christmas morning as your children open their old-fashioned presents. Your 11-year-old son: "What the heck is this?" You: "A spinning top! You spin it around, and then eventually it falls down. What fun! Ha, ha!" Son: "Is this a joke? Jason Thompson's parents got him a computer with two disk drives and 128 kilobytes of random-access memory, and I get this cretin TOP?" Your 8-year-old daughter: "You think that's bad? Look at this." You: "It's figgy pudding! What a treat!" Daughter: "It looks like goat barf." -- Dave Barry, "Simple, Homespun Gifts" "Why was I born with such contemporaries?" -- Oscar Wilde Wiker's Law: Government expands to absorb revenue and then some. William Safire's Rules for Writers: Remember to never split an infinitive. The passive voice should never be used. Do not put statements in the negative form. Verbs have to agree with their subjects. Proofread carefully to see if you words out. If you reread your work, you can find on rereading a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing. A writer must not shift your point of view. And don't start a sentence with a conjunction. (Remember, too, a preposition is a terrible word to end a sentence with.) Don't overuse exclamation marks!! Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long sentences, as of 10 or more words, to their antecedents. Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided. If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is. Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing metaphors. Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky. Everyone should be careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns in their writing. Always pick on the correct idiom. The adverb always follows the verb. Last but not least, avoid cliches like the plague; seek viable alternatives. Williams and Holland's Law: If enough data is collected, anything may be proven by statistical methods. Winter is the season in which people try to keep the house as warm as it was in the summer, when they complained about the heat. Wit, n.: The salt with which the American Humorist spoils his cookery ... by leaving it out. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" With a rubber duck, one's never alone. -- "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" With all the fancy scientists in the world, why can't they just once build a nuclear balm? With every passing hour our solar system comes forty-three thousand miles closer to globular cluster M13 in the constellation Hercules, and still there are some misfits who continue to insist that there is no such thing as progress. -- Ransom K. Ferm Without ice cream life and fame are meaningless. Wood is highly ecological, since trees are a renewable resource. If you cut down a tree, another will grow in its place. And if you cut down the new tree, still another will grow. And if you cut down that tree, yet another will grow, only this one will be a mutation with long, poisonous tentacles and revenge in its heart, and it will sit there in the forest, cackling and making elaborate plans for when you come back. Wood heat is not new. It dates back to a day millions of years ago, when a group of cavemen were sitting around, watching dinosaurs rot. Suddenly, lightning struck a nearby log and set it on fire. One of the cavemen stared at the fire for a few minutes, then said: "Hey! Wood heat!" The other cavemen, who did not understand English, immediately beat him to death with stones. But the key discovery had been made, and from that day forward, the cavemen had all the heat they needed, although their insurance rates went way up. -- Dave Barry, "Postpetroleum Guzzler" Workers of the world, arise! You have nothing to lose but your chairs. Worst Month of 1981 for Downhill Skiing: August. The lines are the shortest, though. -- Steve Rubenstein Worst Month of the Year: February. February has only 28 days in it, which means that if you rent an apartment, you are paying for three full days you don't get. Try to avoid Februarys whenever possible. -- Steve Rubenstein Worst Vegetable of the Year: The brussels sprout. This is also the worst vegetable of next year. -- Steve Rubenstein "Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?" "That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat -- Lewis Carrol Write-Protect Tab, n.: A small sticker created to cover the unsightly notch carelessly left by disk manufacturers. The use of the tab creates an error message once in a while, but its aesthetic value far outweighs the momentary inconvenience. -- Robb Russon X-rated movies are all alike ... the only thing they leave to the imagination is the plot. Xerox does it again and again and again and ... Xerox never comes up with anything original. "Yacc" owes much to a most stimulating collection of users, who have goaded me beyond my inclination, and frequently beyond my ability in their endless search for "one more feature". Their irritating unwillingness to learn how to do things my way has usually led to my doing things their way; most of the time, they have been right. -- S. C. Johnson, "Yacc guide acknowledgements" Year, n.: A period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" Yes, but every time I try to see things your way, I get a headache. Yes, but which self do you want to be? Yesterday I was a dog. Today I'm a dog. Tomorrow I'll probably still be a dog. Sigh! There's so little hope for advancement. -- Snoopy Yesterday upon the stair I met a man who wasn't there. He wasn't there again today -- I think he's from the CIA. Yield to Temptation ... it may not pass your way again. -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love" Yinkel, n.: A person who combs his hair over his bald spot, hoping no one will notice. -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" "You are old, Father William," the young man said, "All your papers these days look the same; Those William's would be better unread -- Do these facts never fill you with shame?" "In my youth," Father William replied to his son, "I wrote wonderful papers galore; But the great reputation I found that I'd won, Made it pointless to think any more." "You are old, father William," the young man said, "And your hair has become very white; And yet you incessantly stand on your head -- Do you think, at your age, it is right?" "In my youth," father William replied to his son, "I feared it might injure the brain; But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none, Why, I do it again and again." -- Lewis Carrol "You are old," said the youth, "and I'm told by my peers That your lectures bore people to death. Yet you talk at one hundred conventions per year -- Don't you think that you should save your breath?" "I have answered three questions and that is enough," Said his father, "Don't give yourself airs! Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff? Be off, or I'll kick you downstairs!" "You are old," said the youth, "and your jaws are too weak For anything tougher than suet; Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak -- Pray, how did you manage to do it?" "In my youth," said his father, "I took to the law, And argued each case with my wife; And the muscular strength which it gave to my jaw, Has lasted the rest of my life." -- Lewis Carrol "You are old," said the youth, "and your programs don't run, And there isn't one language you like; Yet of useful suggestions for help you have none -- Have you thought about taking a hike?" "Since I never write programs," his father replied, "Every language looks equally bad; Yet the people keep paying to read all my books And don't realize that they've been had." "You are old," said the youth, "as I mentioned before, And have grown most uncommonly fat; Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door -- Pray what is the reason of that?" "In my youth," said the sage, as he shook his grey locks, "I kept all my limbs very supple By the use of this ointment -- one shilling the box -- Allow me to sell you a couple?" -- Lewis Carrol "You are old," said the youth, "as I mentioned before, And make errors few people could bear; You complain about everyone's English but yours -- Do you really think this is quite fair?" "I make lots of mistakes," Father William declared, "But my stature these days is so great That no critic can hurt me -- I've got them all scared, And to stop me it's now far too late." "You are old," said the youth, "one would hardly suppose That your eye was as steady as ever; Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose -- What made you so awfully clever?" "I have answered three questions, and that is enough," Said his father. "Don't give yourself airs! Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff? Be off, or I'll kick you down stairs!" -- Lewis Carrol You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely. You are wise, witty, and wonderful, but you spend too much time reading this sort of trash. You can always tell the Christmas season is here when you start getting incredibly dense, tinfoil-and-ribbon- wrapped lumps in the mail. Fruitcakes make ideal gifts because the Postal Service has been unable to find a way to damage them. They last forever, largely because nobody ever eats them. In fact, many smart people save the fruitcakes they receive and send them back to the original givers the next year; some fruitcakes have been passed back and forth for hundreds of years. The easiest way to make a fruitcake is to buy a darkish cake, then pound some old, hard fruit into it with a mallet. Be sure to wear safety glasses. -- Dave Barry, "Simple, Homespun Gifts" You can create your own opportunities this week. Blackmail a senior executive. You can get more of what you want with a kind word and a gun than you can with just a kind word. -- Bumper Sticker You can make it illegal, but you can't make it unpopular. You can measure a programmer's perspective by noting his attitude on the continuing viability of FORTRAN. -- Alan Perlis You can take all the impact that science considerations have on funding decisions at NASA, put them in the navel of a flea, and have room left over for a caraway seed and Tony Calio's heart. -- F. Allen You can tell how far we have to go, when FORTRAN is the language of supercomputers. -- Steven Feiner You can't carve your way to success without cutting remarks. You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair. You can't start worrying about what's going to happen. You get spastic enough worrying about what's happening now. -- Lauren Bacall "You can't teach people to be lazy - either they have it, or they don't." -- Dagwood Bumstead You cannot achieve the impossible without attempting the absurd. You cannot kill time without injuring eternity. You cannot propel yourself forward by patting yourself on the back. You could get a new lease on life -- if only you didn't need the first and last month in advance. You couldn't even prove the White House staff sane beyond a reasonable doubt. -- Ed Meese, on the Hinckley verdict You don't have to think too hard when you talk to teachers. -- J. D. Salinger You don't sew with a fork, so I see no reason to eat with knitting needles. -- Miss Piggy, on eating Chinese Food You first have to decide whether to use the short or the long form. The short form is what the Internal Revenue Service calls "simplified", which means it is designed for people who need the help of a Sears tax-preparation expert to distinguish between their first and last names. Here's the complete text: "1. How much did you make? (AMOUNT) "2. How much did we here at the government take out? (AMOUNT) "3. Hey! Sounds like we took too much! So we're going to send an official government check for (ONE-FIFTEENTH OF THE AMOUNT WE TOOK) directly to the (YOUR LAST NAME) household at (YOUR ADDRESS), for you to spend in any way you please! Which just goes to show you, (YOUR FIRST NAME), that it pays to file the short form!" The IRS wants you to use this form because it gets to keep most of your money. So unless you have pond silt for brains, you want the long form. -- Dave Barry, "Sweating Out Taxes" You have the capacity to learn from mistakes. You'll learn a lot today. You know you've been spending too much time on the computer when your friend misdates a check, and you suggest adding a "++" to fix it. "You know, it's at times like this when I'm trapped in a Vogon airlock with a man from Betelgeuse and about to die of asphyxiation in deep space that I really wish I'd listened to what my mother told me when I was young!" "Why, what did she tell you?" "I don't know, I didn't listen!" -- Douglas Adams, "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" You may be recognized soon. Hide. You may have heard that a dean is to faculty as a hydrant is to a dog. -- Alfred Kahn You men out there probably think you already know how to dress for success. You know, for example, that you should not wear leisure suits or white plastic belts and shoes, unless you are going to a costume party disguised as a pig farmer vacationing at Disney World. -- Dave Barry, "How to Dress for Real Success" You might have mail "You must realize that the computer has it in for you. The irrefutable proof of this is that the computer always does what you tell it to do." You need no longer worry about the future. This time tomorrow you'll be dead. You never know how many friends you have until you rent a house on the beach. You or I must yield up his life to Ahrimanes. I would rather it were you. I should have no hesitation in sacrificing my own life to spare yours, but we take stock next week, and it would not be fair on the company. -- J. Wellington Wells You possess a mind not merely twisted, but actually sprained. You should emulate your heros, but don't carry it too far. Especially if they are dead. You should never wear your best trousers when you go out to fight for freedom and liberty. -- Henrick Ibson You should not use your fireplace, because scientists now believe that, contrary to popular opinion, fireplaces actually remove heat from houses. Really, that's what scientists believe. In fact many scientists actually use their fireplaces to cool their houses in the summer. If you visit a scientist's house on a sultry August day, you'll find a cheerful fire roaring on the hearth and the scientist sitting nearby, remarking on how cool he is and drinking heavily. -- Dave Barry, "Postpetroleum Guzzler" You will be a winner today. Pick a fight with a four-year-old. You will be surprised by a loud noise. You will be Told about it Tomorrow. Go Home and Prepare Thyself. You worry too much about your job. Stop it. You are not paid enough to worry. "You'll never be the man your mother was!" You're at the end of the road again. You're being followed. Cut out the hanky-panky for a few days. You're never too old to become younger. -- Mae West You're not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on. -- Dean Martin You've been leading a dog's life. Stay off the furniture. Your analyst has you mixed up with another patient. Don't believe a thing he tells you. Your conscience never stops you from doing anything. It just stops you from enjoying it. Your fault: core dumped Your life would be very empty if you had nothing to regret. Your lucky color has faded. Your lucky number has been disconnected. Your lucky number is 3552664958674928. Watch for it everywhere. Your true value depends entirely on what you are compared with. Youth is when you blame all your troubles on your parents; maturity is when you learn that everything is the fault of the younger generation. Zero Defects, n.: The result of shutting down a production line. Zounds! I was never so bethumped with words since I first called my brother's father dad. -- William Shakespeare, "King John" Zymurgy's Law of Volunteer Labor: People are always available for work in the past tense. Sorry, no obscene fortunes. Don't want to offend anyone. (Now that's obscene!) "Any fool can paint a picture, but it takes a wise man to be able to sell it." "But I don't like Spam!!!!" "Don't tell me what you dream'd last night for I've been reading Freud." "Every creature has within him the wild, uncontrollable urge to PUNT." "He is considered the most graceful speaker who can say nothing in most words." "MAC user's dynamic debugging list evaluator? Never heard of that." "Mate, this parrot wouldn't VOOM if you put four million volts through it!" "Mind your own business, Spock. I'm sick of your halfbreed interference." "Oh, Aunty Em, it's so good to be home!" "They took some of the Van Goghs, most of the jewels, and all of the Chivas!" "Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore!" 'Home, Sweet Home' must surely have been written by a bachelor. dobawka fortunes fortunes.txt tmp tmp.bu UNIX is a Trademark of Bell Laboratories. 1 bulls, 3 cows. 10.0 times 0.1 is hardly ever 1.0. 23. ... r-q1 : is not an identifier A Puritan is someone who is deathly afraid that someone somewhere is having fun. A clash of doctrine is not a disaster - it is an opportunity. A conservative is one who is too cowardly to fight and too fat to run. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. A gift of flower will soon be made to you. A good memory does not equal pale ink. A hammer sometimes misses its mark - a bouquet never A handful of friends is worth more than a wagon of gold. A hermit is a deserter from the army of humanity A journey of a thousand miles begins with a cash advance from Jack. A king's castle is his home. A liberal is someone too poor to be a capitalist and too rich to be a communist. A man forgives only when he is in the wrong. A man paints with his brains and not with his hands. A man who fishes for marlin in ponds will put his money in Etruscan bonds. A man who turns green has eschewed protein. A plucked goose doesn't lay golden eggs. A soft drink turneth away company. A truly wise man never plays leapfrog with a Unicorn. A visit to a fresh place will bring strange work. A visit to a strange place will bring fresh work. A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle. About all some men accomplish in life is to send a son to Harvard. About the only thing on a farm that has an easy time is the dog. Above all things, reverence yourself. Academy: A modern school where football is taught. Actors will happen in the best-regulated families. Admiration: Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves. After a number of decimal places, nobody gives a damn. Alimony and bribes will engage a large share of your wealth. All great ideas are controversial, or have been at one time. All in all it's just another brick in the wall... All that glitters has a high refractive index. America's best buy for a nickel is a telephone call to the right man. An idle mind is worth two in the bush. And I alone am returned to wag the tail. As goatherd learns his trade by goat, so writer learns his trade by wrote. As long as the answer is right, who cares if the question is wrong? Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, If God won't have you, the devil must. Auribus teneo lupum. (I hold a wolf by the ears.) Avoid GOTOs completely if you can keep the program readable. Avoid temporary variables. Avoid the Fortran arithmetic IF. Avoid unnecessary branches. Baby... -- The Late Elvis Presley. Be careful when a loop exits to the same place from side and bottom. Be careful! Is it classified? Be security conscious - National defense is at stake. Been Transferred Lately? Better living a beggar than buried an emperor. Beware of a dark-haired man with a loud tie. Beware of a tall dark man with a spoon up his nose. Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes. Beware the new TTY code! Biggest security gap - an open mouth. Blessed are they that run around in circles, for they shall be known as wheels. Business will be either better or worse. --Calvin Coolidge By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail. Can anyone remember when the times were not hard, and money not scarce? Can anything be sadder than work left unfinished? Yes, work never begun. Cannot fork -- try again. Cannot open /usr/games/lib/fortunes. Center meeting at 4 pm in 2C-543. Change your thoughts and you change your world. Charity: a thing that begins at home and usually stays there. Chinese saying: "He who speak with forked tongue, not need chopsticks." Choose variable names that won't be confused. Classified material requires proper storage. Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. Concentrate on security. Continental Life. Why do you ask? Courage is grace under pressure. Courage is your greatest present need. Crazee Edeee, his prices are INSANE!!! Creditors have much better memories than debtors.