Fortune Cookies
Fortunes
!07/11 PDP a ni deppart m'I !pleH
(1) Alexander the Great was a great general.
(2) Great generals are forewarned.
(3) Forewarned is forearmed.
(4) Four is an even number.
(5) Four is certainly an odd number of arms for a man to have.
(6) The only number that is both even and odd is infinity.
Therefore, Alexander the Great had an infinite number of arms.(1) Everything depends.
(2) Nothing is always.
(3) Everything is sometimes.1.79 x 10^12 furlongs per fortnight -- it's not just a good idea, it's
the law!10.0 times 0.1 is hardly ever 1.0.
100 buckets of bits on the bus
100 buckets of bits
Take one down, short it to ground
FF buckets of bits on the bus
FF buckets of bits on the bus
FF buckets of bits
Take one down, short it to ground
FE buckets of bits on the bus
ad infinitum...$100 invested at 7% interest for 100 years will become $100,000, at
which time it will be worth absolutely nothing.
-- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love"101 USES FOR A DEAD MICROPROCESSOR
(1) Scarecrow for centipedes
(2) Dead cat brush
(3) Hair barrettes
(4) Cleats
(5) Self-piercing earrings
(6) Fungus trellis
(7) False eyelashes
(8) Prosthetic dog claws
.
.
.
(99) Window garden harrow (pulled behind Tonka tractors)
(100) Killer velcro
(101) Currency186,282 miles per second:
It isn't just a good idea, it's the law!2180, U.S. History question:
What 20th Century U.S. President was almost impeached and what
office did he later hold?$3,000,000
"355/113 -- Not the famous irrational number PI, but an incredible
simulation!"43rd Law of Computing:
Anything that can go wr
fortune: Segmentation violation -- Core dumped77. HO HUM -- The Redundant
------- (7) This hexagram refers to a situation of extreme
--- --- (8) boredom. Your programs always bomb off. Your wife
------- (7) smells bad. Your children have hives. You are working
---O--- (6) on an accounting system, when you want to develop the
---X--- (9) GREAT AMERICAN COMPILER. You give up hot dates to
--- --- (8) nurse sick computers. What you need now is sex.
Nine in the second place means:
The yellow bird approaches the malt shop. Misfortune.
Six in the third place means:
In former times men built altars to honor the Internal Revenue
Service. Great Dragons! Are you in trouble!7:30, Channel 5: The Bionic Dog (Action/Adventure)
The Bionic Dog drinks too much and kicks over the National
Redwood Forest.7:30, Channel 5: The Bionic Dog (Action/Adventure)
The Bionic Dog gets a hormonal short-circuit and violates the
Mann Act with an interstate Greyhound bus.99 blocks of crud on the disk,
99 blocks of crud!
You patch a bug, and dump it again:
100 blocks of crud on the disk!
100 blocks of crud on the disk,
100 blocks of crud!
You patch a bug, and dump it again:
101 blocks of crud on the disk! ...A "No" uttered from deepest conviction is better and greater than a
"Yes" merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble.
-- Mahatma GhandiA [golf] ball hitting a tree shall be deemed not to have hit the tree.
Hitting a tree is simply bad luck and has no place in a scientific
game. The player should estimate the distance the ball would have
traveled if it had not hit the tree and play the ball from there,
preferably atop a nice firm tuft of grass.
-- Donald A. MetzA [golf] ball sliced or hooked into the rough shall be lifted and
placed in the fairway at a point equal to the distance it carried or
rolled into the rough. Such veering right or left frequently results
from friction between the face of the club and the cover of the ball
and the player should not be penalized for the erratic behavior of the
ball resulting from such uncontrollable physical
phenomena.
-- Donald A. MetzA baby is an alimentary canal with a loud voice at one end and no
responsibility at the other.A baby is God's opinion that the world should go on.
-- Carl SandburgA bachelor is a selfish, undeserving guy who has cheated some woman out
of a divorce.
-- Don QuinnA banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining
and wants it back the minute it begins to rain.
-- Mark TwainA billion here, a couple of billion there -- first thing you know it
adds up to be real money.
-- Senator Everett McKinley DirksenA bird in the bush usually has a friend in there with him.
A bird in the hand is worth what it will bring.
A bird in the hand makes it awfully hard to blow your nose.
... A booming voice says, "Wrong, cretin!", and you notice that you
have turned into a pile of dust.A bore is someone who persists in holding his own views after we have
enlightened him with ours.A budget is just a method of worrying before you spend money, as well
as afterward.A candidate is a person who gets money from the rich and votes from the
poor to protect them from each other.A celebrity is a person who is known for his well-knownness.
A child can go only so far in life without potty training. It is not
mere coincidence that six of the last seven presidents were potty
trained, not to mention nearly half of the nation's state legislators.
-- Dave BarryA child of five could understand this! Fetch me a child of five.
A chubby man with a white beard and a red suit will approach you soon.
Avoid him. He's a Commie.A citizen of America will cross the ocean to fight for democracy, but
won't cross the street to vote in a national election.
-- Bill VaughanA city is a large community where people are lonesome together
-- Herbert ProchnowA classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody
wants to read.
-- Mark TwainA closed mouth gathers no foot.
A computer, to print out a fact,
Will divide, multiply, and subtract.
But this output can be
No more than debris,
If the input was short of exact.
-- GigoA conclusion is simply the place where someone got tired of thinking.
A CONS is an object which cares.
-- Bernie Greenberg.A consultant is a person who borrows your watch, tells you what time it
is, pockets the watch, and sends you a bill for it.A continuing flow of paper is sufficient to continue the flow of paper.
-- DyerA copy of the universe is not what is required of art; one of the
damned things is ample.
-- Rebecca WestA countryman between two lawyers is like a fish between two cats.
-- Ben FranklinA crusader's wife slipped from the garrison
And had an affair with a Saracen.
She was not oversexed,
Or jealous or vexed,
She just wanted to make a comparison.A cynic is a person searching for an honest man, with a stolen
lantern.
-- Edgar A. ShoaffA day for firm decisions!!!!! Or is it?
A day without sunshine is like night.
A diplomat is a man who can convince his wife she'd look stout in a fur
coat.A diplomat is someone who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that
you will look forward to the trip.A disciple of another sect once came to Drescher as he was
eating his morning meal. "I would like to give you this personality
test", said the outsider, "because I want you to be happy."
Drescher took the paper that was offered him and put it into
the toaster -- "I wish the toaster to be happy too".A diva who specializes in risqu'e arias is an off-coloratura soprano ...
A doctor, an architect, and a computer scientist were arguing
about whose profession was the oldest. In the course of their
arguments, they got all the way back to the Garden of Eden, whereupon
the doctor said, "The medical profession is clearly the oldest, because
Eve was made from Adam's rib, as the story goes, and that was a simply
incredible surgical feat."
The architect did not agree. He said, "But if you look at the
Garden itself, in the beginning there was chaos and void, and out of
that, the Garden and the world were created. So God must have been an
architect."
The computer scientist, who had listened to all of this said,
"Yes, but where do you think the chaos came from?"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of.
-- Ogden NashA dozen, a gross, and a score,
Plus three times the square root of four,
Divided by seven,
Plus five times eleven,
Equals nine squared plus zero, no more.A famous Lisp Hacker noticed an Undergraduate sitting in front of a
Xerox 1108, trying to edit a complex Klone network via a browser.
Wanting to help, the Hacker clicked one of the nodes in the network
with the mouse, and asked "what do you see?" Very earnestly, the
Undergraduate replied "I see a cursor." The Hacker then quickly
pressed the boot toggle at the back of the keyboard, while
simultaneously hitting the Undergraduate over the head with a thick
Interlisp Manual. The Undergraduate was then Enlightened.A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the
subject.
-- Winston ChurchillA fool must now and then be right by chance.
A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into
superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education.
-- G. B. ShawA fool-proof method for sculpting an elephant: first, get a huge block
of marble; then you chip away everything that doesn't look like an
elephant.A formal parsing algorithm should not always be used.
-- D. Gries"A fractal is by definition a set for which the Hausdorff Besicovitch
dimension strictly exceeds the topological dimension."
-- Mandelbrot, "The Fractal Geometry of Nature"A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular.
-- Adlai StevensonA Galileo could no more be elected president of the United States than
he could be elected Pope of Rome. Both high posts are reserved for men
favored by God with an extraordinary genius for swathing the bitter
facts of life in bandages of self-illusion.
-- H. L. MenckenA general leading the State Department resembles a dragon commanding
ducks.
-- New York Times, Jan. 20, 1981A girl and a boy bump into each other -- surely an accident.
A girl and a boy bump and her handkerchief drops -- surely another accident.
But when a girl gives a boy a dead squid -- *____that ___had __to ____mean _________something*.
-- S. Morganstern, "The Silent Gondoliers"A gleekzorp without a tornpee is like a quop without a fertsneet (sort
of).A good question is never answered. It is not a bolt to be tightened
into place but a seed to be planted and to bear more seed toward the
hope of greening the landscape of idea.
-- John CiardiA great many people think they are thinking when they are merely
rearranging their prejudices.
-- William JamesA great nation is any mob of people which produces at least one honest
man a century.A hypothetical paradox:
What would happen in a battle between an Enterprise security
team, who always get killed soon after appearing, and a squad of
Imperial Stormtroopers, who can't hit the broad side of a planet?
-- Tom GallowayA is for Amy who fell down the stairs, B is for Basil assaulted by bears.
C is for Clair who wasted away, D is for Desmond thrown out of the sleigh.
E is for Ernest who choked on a peach, F is for Fanny, sucked dry by a leech.
G is for George, smothered under a rug, H is for Hector, done in by a thug.
I is for Ida who drowned in the lake, J is for James who took lye, by mistake.
K is for Kate who was struck with an axe, L is for Leo who swallowed some tacks.
M is for Maud who was swept out to sea, N is for Nevil who died of enui.
O is for Olive, run through with an awl, P is for Prue, trampled flat in a brawl
Q is for Quinton who sank in a mire, R is for Rhoda, consumed by a fire.
S is for Susan who parished of fits, T is for Titas who flew into bits.
U is for Una who slipped down a drain, V is for Victor, squashed under a train.
W is for Winie, embedded in ice, X is for Xercies, devoured by mice.
Y is for Yoric whose head was bashed in, Z is for Zilla who drank too much gin.
-- Edward Gorey "The Gastly Crumb Tines"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a cash advance.
A jury consists of 12 persons chosen to decide
who has the better lawyer.
-- Robert FrostA lack of leadership is no substitute for inaction.
A lack of leadership is no substitute for inaction.
A lack of leadership is no substitute for inaction.
A lady with one of her ears applied
To an open keyhole heard, inside,
Two female gossips in converse free --
The subject engaging them was she.
"I think", said one, "and my husband thinks
That she's a prying, inquisitive minx!"
As soon as no more of it she could hear
The lady, indignant, removed her ear.
"I will not stay," she said with a pout,
"To hear my character lied about!"
-- Gopete SheranyA language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is
not worth knowing.A language that doesn't have everything is actually easier to program
in than some that do.
-- Dennis M. RitchieA large number of installed systems work by fiat. That is, they work
by being declared to work.
-- Anatol HoltA Law of Computer Programming:
Make it possible for programmers to write in English and you
will find the programmers cannot write in English.A limerick packs laughs anatomical
Into space that is quite economical.
But the good ones I've seen
So seldom are clean,
And the clean ones so seldom are comical.A LISP programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of
nothing.A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation.
-- H. H. MunroeA long memory is the most subversive idea in America.
A long-forgotten loved one will appear soon. Buy the negatives at any
price.A Los Angeles judge ruled that "a citizen may snore with immunity in
his own home, even though he may be in possession of unusual and
exceptional ability in that particular field."A lot of people are afraid of heights. Not me. I'm afraid of widths.
-- Steve WrightA lot of people I know believe in positive thinking, and so do I. I
believe everything positively stinks.
-- Lew ColA man goes to a tailor to try on a new custom-made suit. The
first thing he notices is that the arms are too long.
"No problem," says the tailor. "Just bend them at the elbow
and hold them out in front of you. See, now it's fine."
"But the collar is up around my ears!"
"It's nothing. Just hunch your back up a little ... no, a
little more ... that's it."
"But I'm stepping on my cuffs!" the man cries in desperation.
"Nu, bend you knees a little to take up the slack. There you
go. Look in the mirror -- the suit fits perfectly."
So, twisted like a pretzel, the man lurches out onto the
street. Reba and Florence see him go by.
"Oh, look," says Reba, "that poor man!"
"Yes," says Florence, "but what a beautiful suit."
-- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"A man said to the Universe: "Sir, I exist!"
"However," replied the Universe, "the fact has not created in me a
sense of obligation."
-- Stephen CraneA man wrapped up in himself makes a very small package.
A master was explaining the nature of Tao to one of his
novices. "The Tao is embodied in all software -- regardless of how
insignificant," said the master.
"Is Tao in a hand-held calculator?" asked the novice.
"It is," came the reply.
"Is the Tao in a video game?" continued the novice.
"It is even in a video game," said the master.
"And is the Tao in the DOS for a personal computer?"
The master coughed and shifted his position slightly. "The
lesson is over for today," he said.
-- "The Tao of Programming"A mathematician is a machine for converting coffee into theorems.
A Mexican newspaper reports that bored Royal Air Force pilots stationed
on the Falkland Islands have devised what they consider a marvelous new
game. Noting that the local penguins are fascinated by airplanes, the
pilots search out a beach where the birds are gathered and fly slowly
along it at the water's edge. Perhaps ten thousand penguins turn their
heads in unison watching the planes go by, and when the pilots turn
around and fly back, the birds turn their heads in the opposite
direction, like spectators at a slow-motion tennis match. Then, the
paper reports, "The pilots fly out to sea and directly to the penguin
colony and overfly it. Heads go up, up, up, and ten thousand penguins
fall over gently onto their backs.
-- Audobon Society MagazineA musician of more ambition than talent composed an elegy at
the death of composer Edward MacDowell. She played the elegy for the
pianist Josef Hoffman, then asked his opinion. "Well, it's quite
nice," he replied, but don't you think it would be better if ..."
"If what?" asked the composer.
"If ... if you had died and MacDowell had written the elegy?"A neighbor came to Nasrudin, asking to borrow his donkey. "It is out
on loan," the teacher replied. At that moment, the donkey brayed
loudly inside the stable. "But I can hear it bray, over there." "Whom
do you believe," asked Nasrudin, "me or a donkey?"A new dramatist of the absurd
Has a voice that will shortly be heard.
I learn from my spies
He's about to devise
An unprintable three-letter word.A new koan:
If you have some ice cream, I will give it to you.
If you have no ice cream, I will take it away from you.
It is an ice cream koan.A new supply of round tuits has arrived and are available from Mary.
Anyone who has been putting off work until they got a round tuit now
has no excuse for further procrastination.A New York City judge ruled that if two women behind you at the movies
insist on discussing the probable outcome of the film, you have the
right to turn around and blow a Bronx cheer at them.A New York City ordinance prohibits the shooting of rabbits from the
rear of a Third Avenue street car -- if the car is in motion.A novel approach is to remove all power from the system, which
removes most system overhead so that resources can be fully devoted to
doing nothing. Benchmarks on this technique are promising; tremendous
amounts of nothing can be produced in this manner. Certain hardware
limitations can limit the speed of this method, especially in the
larger systems which require a more involved & less efficient
power-down sequence.
An alternate approach is to pull the main breaker for the
building, which seems to provide even more nothing, but in truth has
bugs in it, since it usually inhibits the systems which keep the beer
cool.A novice was trying to fix a broken Lisp machine by turning the power
off and on. Knight, seeing what the student was doing spoke sternly:
"You can not fix a machine by just power-cycling it with no
understanding of what is going wrong." Knight turned the machine off
and on. The machine worked.A nuclear war can ruin your whole day.
A pedestal is as much a prison as any small, confined space.
-- Gloria SteinemA penny saved is ridiculous.
A person is just about as big as the things that make them angry.
A physicist is an atom's way of knowing about atoms.
-- George WaldA pig is a jolly companion,
Boar, sow, barrow, or gilt --
A pig is a pal, who'll boost your morale,
Though mountains may topple and tilt.
When they've blackballed, bamboozled, and burned you,
When they've turned on you, Tory and Whig,
Though you may be thrown over by Tabby and Rover,
You'll never go wrong with a pig, a pig,
You'll never go wrong with a pig!
-- Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow"A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling
by Mark Twain
For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped
to be replased either by "k" or "s", and likewise "x" would no longer
be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be retained
would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2
might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the
same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with
"i" and Iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all.
Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear
with Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12
or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants.
Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi
ridandant letez "c", "y" and "x" -- bai now jast a memori in the maindz
ov ould doderez -- tu riplais "ch", "sh", and "th" rispektivli.
Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud
hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld."A power so great, it can only be used for Good or Evil!"
-- Firesign Theatre, "The Giant Rat of Summatra"A priest asked: What is Fate, Master?
And he answered:
It is that which gives a beast of burden its reason for existence.
It is that which men in former times had to bear upon their backs.
It is that which has caused nations to build byways from City to City
upon which carts and coaches pass, and alongside which inns have come
to be built to stave off Hunger, Thirst and Weariness.
And that is Fate? said the priest.
Fate ... I thought you said Freight, responded the Master.
That's all right, said the priest. I wanted to know what Freight was
too.
-- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit"A priest was walking along the cliffs at Dover when he came
upon two locals pulling another man ashore on the end of a rope.
"That's what I like to see", said the priest, "A man helping his fellow
man".
As he was walking away, one local remarked to the other, "Well,
he sure doesn't know the first thing about shark fishing."A professor is one who talks in someone else's sleep.
"A programmer is a person who passes as an exacting expert on the basis
of being able to turn out, after innumerable punching, an infinite
series of incomprehensive answers calculated with micrometric
precisions from vague assumptions based on debatable figures taken from
inconclusive documents and carried out on instruments of problematical
accuracy by persons of dubious reliability and questionable mentality
for the avowed purpose of annoying and confounding a hopelessly
defenseless department that was unfortunate enough to ask for the
information in the first place."
-- IEEE Grid news magazineA psychiatrist is a person who will give you expensive answers that
your wife will give you for free.A public debt is a kind of anchor in the storm; but if the anchor be
too heavy for the vessel, she will be sunk by that very weight which
was intended for her preservation.
-- ColtonA putt that stops close enough to the cup to inspire such comments as
"you could blow it in" may be blown in. This rule does not apply if
the ball is more than three inches from the hole, because no one wants
to make a travesty of the game.
-- Donald A. Metz"A raccoon tangled with a 23,000 volt line today. The results blacked
out 1400 homes and, of course, one raccoon."
-- Steel City News"A radioactive cat has eighteen half-lives."
A reading from the Book of Armaments, Chapter 4, Verses 16 to 20:
Then did he raise on high the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, saying,
"Bless this, O Lord, that with it thou mayst blow thine enemies to tiny
bits, in thy mercy." And the people did rejoice and did feast upon the
lambs and toads and tree-sloths and fruit-bats and orangutans and
breakfast cereals ... Now did the Lord say, "First thou pullest the
Holy Pin. Then thou must count to three. Three shall be the number of
the counting and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt
thou not count, neither shalt thou count two, excepting that thou then
proceedeth to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being
the number of the counting, be reached, then lobbest thou the Holy Hand
Grenade in the direction of thine foe, who, being naughty in my sight,
shall snuff it."
-- Monty Python, "Monty Python and the Holy Grail"A real patriot is the fellow who gets a parking ticket and rejoices
that the system works.A real person has two reasons for doing anything ... a good reason and
the real reason.A recent study has found that concentrating on difficult off-screen
objects, such as the faces of loved ones, causes eye strain in computer
scientists. Researchers into the phenomenon cite the added
concentration needed to "make sense" of such unnatural three
dimensional objects ...A Riverside, California, health ordinance states that two persons may
not kiss each other without first wiping their lips with carbolized
rosewater.A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man
contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.
-- Antoine de Saint-ExuperyA sense of humor keen enough to show a man his own absurdities will
keep him from the commission of all sins, or nearly all, save those
that are worth committing.
-- Samuel ButlerA Severe Strain on the Credulity
As a method of sending a missile to the higher, and even to the highest
parts of the earth's atmospheric envelope, Professor Goddard's rocket
is a practicable and therefore promising device. It is when one
considers the multiple-charge rocket as a traveler to the moon that one
begins to doubt ... for after the rocket quits our air and really
starts on its journey, its flight would be neither accelerated nor
maintained by the explosion of the charges it then might have left.
Professor Goddard, with his "chair" in Clark College and countenancing
of the Smithsonian Institution, does not know the relation of action to
re-action, and of the need to have something better than a vacuum
against which to react ... Of course he only seems to lack the
knowledge ladled out daily in high schools.
-- New York Times Editorial, 1920A sine curve goes off to infinity or at least the end of the blackboard
-- Prof. Steiner... A solemn, unsmiling, sanctimonious old iceberg who looked like he
was waiting for a vacancy in the Trinity.
-- Mark TwainA straw vote only shows which way the hot air blows.
-- O'HenryA strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures.
-- Daniel WebsterA student who changes the course of history is probably taking an
exam.A student, in hopes of understanding the Lambda-nature, came to
Greenblatt. As they spoke a Multics system hacker walked by. "Is it
true," asked the student, "that PL-1 has many of the same data types as
Lisp?" Almost before the student had finished his question, Greenblatt
shouted, "FOO!", and hit the student with a stick.A successful [software] tool is one that was used to do something
undreamed of by its author.
-- S. C. JohnsonA tautology is a thing which is tautological.
A total abstainer is one who abstains from everything but abstention,
and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"A transistor protected by a fast-acting fuse will protect the fuse by
blowing first.A triangle which has an angle of 135 degrees is called an obscene
triangle.A truly wise man never plays leapfrog with a unicorn.
A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest
in students.
-- John Ciardi"A University without students is like an ointment without a fly."
-- Ed Nather, professor of astronomy at UT AustinA UNIX saleslady, Lenore,
Enjoys work, but she likes the beach more.
She found a good way
To combine work and play:
She sells C shells by the seashore.A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature
replaces it with.
-- Tennessee WilliamsA very intelligent turtle
Found programming UNIX a hurdle
The system, you see,
Ran as slow as did he,
And that's not saying much for the turtle.A well adjusted person is one who makes the same mistake twice without
getting nervous.A witty saying proves nothing, but saying something pointless gets
people's attention."A witty saying proves nothing."
-- Voltaire"A wizard cannot do everything; a fact most magicians are reticent to
admit, let alone discuss with prospective clients. Still, the fact
remains that there are certain objects, and people, that are, for one
reason or another, completely immune to any direct magical spell. It
is for this group of beings that the magician learns the subtleties of
using indirect spells. It also does no harm, in dealing with these
matters, to carry a large club near your person at all times."
-- The Teachings of Ebenezum, Volume VIIIA year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe
in God.A.A.A.A.A.:
An organization for drunks who driveAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaccccccccckkkkkk!!!!!!!!!
You brute! Knock before entering a ladies room!Abandon the search for Truth; settle for a good fantasy.
"About the time we think we can make ends meet, somebody moves the
ends."
-- Herbert HooverAbsence makes the heart go wander.
Absent, adj.:
Exposed to the attacks of friends and acquaintances; defamed;
slandered.Absentee, n.:
A person with an income who has had the forethought to remove
himself from the sphere of exaction.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"Abstainer, n.:
A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a
pleasure.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"Absurdity, n.:
A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own
opinion.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics,
because the stakes are so low.
-- Wallace SayreAccident, n.:
A condition in which presence of mind is good, but absence of
body is better.Accidents cause History.
If Sigismund Unbuckle had taken a walk in 1426 and met Wat Tyler, the
Peasant's Revolt would never have happened and the motor car would not
have been invented until 2026, which would have meant that all the oil
could have been used for lamps, thus saving the electric light bulb and
the whale, and nobody would have caught Moby Dick or Billy Budd.
-- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"According to Arkansas law, Section 4761, Pope's Digest: "No person
shall be permitted under any pretext whatever, to come nearer than
fifty feet of any door or window of any polling room, from the opening
of the polls until the completion of the count and the certification of
the returns."According to Kentucky state law, every person must take a bath at least
once a year.According to my best recollection, I don't remember.
-- Vincent "Jimmy Blue Eyes" AloAccording to the latest official figures, 43% of all statistics are
totally worthless.According to the obituary notices, a mean and unimportant person never
dies."According to the Rand McNally Places-Rated Almanac, the best place to
live in America is the city of Pittsburgh. The city of New York came
in twenty-fifth. Here in New York we really don't care too much.
Because we know that we could beat up their city anytime."
-- David LettermanAccordion, n.:
A bagpipe with pleats.Accuracy, n.:
The vice of being rightACHTUNG!!!
Das machine is nicht fur gefingerpoken und mittengrabben. Ist easy
schnappen der springenwerk, blowenfusen und corkenpoppen mit
spitzensparken. Ist nicht fur gewerken by das dummkopfen. Das
rubbernecken sightseeren keepen hands in das pockets. Relaxen und
vatch das blinkenlights!!!Acid -- better living through chemistry.
Acid absorbs 47 times it's weight in excess Reality.
Acquaintance, n.:
A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well
enough to lend to.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary""Acting is an art which consists of keeping the audience from
coughing."Actor: "I'm a smash hit. Why, yesterday during the last act, I had
everyone glued in their seats!"
Oliver Herford: "Wonderful! Wonderful! Clever of you to think of
it!"Actor: So what do you do for a living?
Doris: I work for a company that makes deceptively shallow serving
dishes for Chinese restaurants.
-- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers"Actors will happen even in the best-regulated families.
ADA, n.:
Something you need only know the name of to be an Expert in
Computing. Useful in sentences like, "We had better develop an ADA
awareness."Admiration, n.:
Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"Adolescence, n.:
The stage between puberty and adultery."Adopted kids are such a pain -- you have to teach them how to look
like you ..."
-- Gilda RadnerAdore, v.:
To venerate expectantly.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"Adult, n.:
One old enough to know better.Advertising is a valuable economic factor because it is the cheapest
way of selling goods, particularly if the goods are worthless.
-- Sinclair LewisAdvice to young men: Be ascetic, and if you can't be ascetic,
then at least be asceptic.After [Benjamin] Franklin came a herd of Electrical Pioneers whose
names have become part of our electrical terminology: Myron Volt, Mary
Louise Amp, James Watt, Bob Transformer, etc. These pioneers conducted
many important electrical experiments. For example, in 1780 Luigi
Galvani discovered (this is the truth) that when he attached two
different kinds of metal to the leg of a frog, an electrical current
developed and the frog's leg kicked, even though it was no longer
attached to the frog, which was dead anyway. Galvani's discovery led
to enormous advances in the field of amphibian medicine. Today,
skilled veterinary surgeons can take a frog that has been seriously
injured or killed, implant pieces of metal in its muscles, and watch it
hop back into the pond just like a normal frog, except for the fact
that it sinks like a stone.
-- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?"After a few boring years, socially meaningful rock 'n' roll died out.
It was replaced by disco, which offers no guidance to any form of life
more advanced than the lichen family.
-- Dave Barry, "Kids Today: They Don't Know Dum Diddly
Do"After a number of decimal places, nobody gives a damn.
"... After all, all he did was string together a lot of old, well-known
quotations."
-- H. L. Mencken, on ShakespeareAfter all, what is your hosts' purpose in having a party? Surely not
for you to enjoy yourself; if that were their sole purpose, they'd have
simply sent champagne and women over to your place by taxi.
-- P. J. O'RourkeAfter an instrument has been assembled, extra components will be found
on the bench.After his Ignoble Disgrace, Satan was being expelled from
Heaven. As he passed through the Gates, he paused a moment in thought,
and turned to God and said, "A new creature called Man, I hear, is soon
to be created."
"This is true," He replied.
"He will need laws," said the Demon slyly.
"What! You, his appointed Enemy for all Time! You ask for the
right to make his laws?"
"Oh, no!" Satan replied, "I ask only that he be allowed to
make his own."
It was so granted.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary""After I asked him what he meant, he replied that freedom consisted of
the unimpeded right to get rich, to use his ability, no matter what the
cost to others, to win advancement."
-- Norman ThomasAfter I run your program, let's make love like crazed weasels, OK?
After living in New York, you trust nobody, but you believe
everything. Just in case.After the last of 16 mounting screws has been removed from an access
cover, it will be discovered that the wrong access cover has been
removed.Afternoon very favorable for romance. Try a single person for a
change.Afternoon, n.:
That part of the day we spend worrying about how we wasted the
morning.Age before beauty; and pearls before swine.
-- Dorothy ParkerAge, n.:
That period of life in which we compound for the vices that we
still cherish by reviling those that we no longer have the enterprise
to commit.
-- Ambrose BierceAh say, son, you're about as sharp as a bowlin' ball.
Ah, but the choice of dreams to live,
there's the rub.
For all dreams are not equal,
some exit to nightmare
most end with the dreamer
But at least one must be lived ... and died."Ah, you know the type. They like to blame it all on the Jews or the
Blacks, 'cause if they couldn't, they'd have to wake up to the fact
that life's one big, scary, glorious, complex and ultimately
unfathomable crapshoot -- and the only reason THEY can't seem to keep
up is they're a bunch of misfits and losers."
-- A analysis of Neo-Nazis, from "The Badger" comicAir is water with holes in it
Alas, I am dying beyond my means.
-- Oscar Wilde, as he sipped champagne on his deathbedAlbert Einstein, when asked to describe radio, replied: "You see, wire
telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New
York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this?
And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they
receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat."Alden's Laws:
(1) Giving away baby clothes and furniture is the major cause
of pregnancy.
(2) Always be backlit.
(3) Sit down whenever possible.Aleph-null bottles of beer on the wall,
Aleph-null bottles of beer,
You take one down, and pass it around,
Aleph-null bottles of beer on the wall.Alex Haley was adopted!
Alexander Graham Bell is alive and well in New York, and still waiting
for a dial tone.Alimony is a system by which, when two people make a mistake, one of
them keeps paying for it.
-- Peggy JoyceAll [zoos] actually offer to the public in return for the taxes spent
upon them is a form of idle and witless amusement, compared to which a
visit to a penitentiary, or even to a State legislature in session, is
informing, stimulating and ennobling.
-- H. L. MenckenAll bridge hands are equally likely, but some are more equally likely
than others.
-- Alan TruscottAll extremists should be taken out and shot.
All Finagle Laws may be bypassed by learning the simple art of doing
without thinking."All flesh is grass"
-- Isiah
Smoke a friend today.All I ask is a chance to prove that money can't make me happy.
All I ask of life is a constant and exaggerated sense of my own
importance.All I can think of is a platter of organic PRUNE CRISPS being trampled
by an army of swarthy, Italian LOUNGE SINGERS ...All I want is a warm bed and a kind word and unlimited power
-- Ashleigh BrilliantAll men are mortal. Socrates was mortal. Therefore, all men are
Socrates.
-- Woody Allen"All my friends and I are crazy. That's the only thing that keeps us
sane.""All my life I wanted to be someone; I guess I should have been more
specific."
-- Jane WagnerAll of the true things I am about to tell you are shameless lies.
-- The Book of Bokonon / Kurt Vonnegut Jr.All other things being equal, a bald man cannot be elected President of
the United States.
-- Vic GoldAll power corrupts, but we need electricity.
All programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors.
All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of
every organism to live beyond its income.
-- Samuel ButlerAll science is either physics or stamp collecting.
-- E. Rutherford"All snakes who wish to remain in Ireland will please raise their right
hands."
-- Saint PatrickAll syllogisms have three parts, therefore this is not a syllogism.
All the big corporations depreciate their possessions, and you can,
too, provided you use them for business purposes. For example, if you
subscribe to the Wall Street Journal, a business-related newspaper, you
can deduct the cost of your house, because, in the words of U.S.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger in a landmark 1979 tax
decision: "Where else are you going to read the paper? Outside? What
if it rains?"
-- Dave Barry, "Sweating Out Taxes""... all the modern inconveniences ..."
-- Mark TwainAll the passions make us commit faults; love makes us commit the most
ridiculous ones.
-- La RochefoucauldAll the taxes paid over a lifetime by the average American are spent by
the government in less than a second.
-- Jim FiebigAll the world's a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed.
-- Sean O'CaseyAll the world's a VAX,
And all the coders merely butchers;
They have their exits and their entrails;
And one int in his time plays many widths,
His sizeof being _N bytes. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the Regent's arms.
And then the whining schoolboy, with his Sun,
And shining morning face, creeping like slug
Unwillingly to school.
-- A Very Annoyed PDP-11All theoretical chemistry is really physics;
and all theoretical chemists know it.
-- Richard P. FeynmanAll things are possible, except skiing thru a revolving door.
All this wheeling and dealing around, why, it isn't for money, it's for
fun. Money's just the way we keep score.All true wisdom is found on T-shirts.
All wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers ... Each one owes
infinitely more to the human race than to the particular country in
which he was born.
-- Francois FenelonAlliance, n.:
In international politics, the union of two thieves who have
their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pocket that they cannot
separately plunder a third.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"Alone, adj.:
In bad company.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"Although golf was originally restricted to wealthy, overweight
Protestants, today it's open to anybody who owns hideous clothing.
-- Dave BarryAlthough the moon is smaller than the earth, it is farther away.
Although we modern persons tend to take our electric lights, radios,
mixers, etc., for granted, hundreds of years ago people did not have
any of these things, which is just as well because there was no place
to plug them in. Then along came the first Electrical Pioneer,
Benjamin Franklin, who flew a kite in a lighting storm and received a
serious electrical shock. This proved that lighting was powered by the
same force as carpets, but it also damaged Franklin's brain so severely
that he started speaking only in incomprehensible maxims, such as "A
penny saved is a penny earned." Eventually he had to be given a job
running the post office.
-- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?"Although written many years ago, Lady Chatterley's Lover has just been
reissued by the Grove Press, and this pictorial account of the
day-to-day life of an English gamekeeper is full of considerable
interest to outdoor minded readers, as it contains many passages on
pheasant-raising, the apprehending of poachers, ways to control vermin,
and other chores and duties of the professional gamekeeper.
Unfortunately, one is obliged to wade through many pages of extraneous
material in order to discover and savour those sidelights on the
management of a midland shooting estate, and in this reviewer's opinion
the book cannot take the place of J. R. Miller's "Practical
Gamekeeping."
-- Ed Zern, "Field and Stream" (Nov. 1959)Always borrow money from a pessimist; he doesn't expect to be paid
back.Always remember that you are unique. Just like everyone else.
"Always try to do things in chronological order; it's less confusing
that way."Am I ranting? I hope so. My ranting gets raves.
AMAZING BUT TRUE ...
If all the salmon caught in Canada in one year were laid end to end
across the Sahara Desert, the smell would be absolutely awful.AMAZING BUT TRUE ...
There is so much sand in Northern Africa that if it were spread out it
would completely cover the Sahara Desert.Ambidextrous, adj.:
Able to pick with equal skill a right-hand pocket or a left.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy.
-- Charlie McCarthyAmerica may be unique in being a country which has leapt from barbarism
to decadence without touching civilization.
-- John O'HaraAmerica was discovered by Amerigo Vespucci and was named after him,
until people got tired of living in a place called "Vespuccia" and
changed its name to "America".
-- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"American business long ago gave up on demanding that prospective
employees be honest and hardworking. It has even stopped hoping for
employees who are educated enough that they can tell the difference
between the men's room and the women's room without having little
pictures on the doors.
-- Dave Barry, "Urine Trouble, Mister""Amnesia used to be my favorite word, but then I forgot it."
An age is called Dark not because the light fails to shine, but because
people refuse to see it.
-- James Michener, "Space"An American's a person who isn't afraid to criticize the President but
is always polite to traffic cops."An anthropologist at Tulane has just come back from a field trip to
New Guinea with reports of a tribe so primitive that they have Tide but
not new Tide with lemon-fresh Borax."