Date: Fri, 19 Jul 1996 23:38:25 MST
Subject: Jokes R Us!!
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One liner: First the memory goes then...I forget the rest!
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Credit: embleton@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca; forwarded by
hein@nyquist.ee.ualberta.ca
Edgar Allen Poe in the 90's
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Once upon a midnight dreary,
fingers cramped and vision bleary,
System manuals piled high
and wasted paper on the floor,
Longing for the warmth of bed sheets,
still I sat there doing spreadsheets.
Having reached the bottom line
I took a floppy from the drawer,
I then invoked the SAVE command
and waited for the disk to store,
Only this and nothing more.
Deep into the monitor peering,
long I sat there wond'ring, fearing,
Doubting, while the disk kept churning,
turning yet to churn some more.
But the silence was unbroken,
and the stillness gave no token.
"Save!" I said, "You cursed mother!
Save my data from before!"
One thing did the phosphors answer,
only this and nothing more,
Just, "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"
Was this some occult illusion,
some maniacal intrusion?
These were choices undesired,
ones I'd never faced before.
Carefully I weighed the choices
as the disk made impish noises.
The cursor flashed, insistent, waiting,
baiting me to type some more.
Clearly I must press a key,
choosing one and nothing more,
From "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"
With fingers pale and trembling,
slowly toward the keyboard bending,
Longing for a happy ending,
hoping all would be restored,
Praying for some guarantee,
timidly, I pressed a key.
But on the screen there still persisted
words appearing as before.
Ghastly grim they blinked and taunted,
haunted, as my patience wore,
Saying "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"
I tried to catch the chips off guard,
and pressed again, but twice as hard.
I pleaded with the cursed machine:
I begged and cried and then I swore.
Now in mighty desperation,
trying random combinations,
Still there came the incantation,
just as senseless as before.
Cursor blinking, angrily, winking,
blinking nonsense as before.
Reading, "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"
There I sat, distraught, exhausted,
by my own machine accosted.
Getting up I turned away
and paced across the office floor.
And then I saw a dreadful sight:
a lightning bolt cut through the night.
A gasp of horror overtook me,
shook me to my very core.
The lightning zapped my previous data,
lost and gone forevermore.
Not even, "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"
The End.
---
Credit: Ghassan Osman forwarded by Sherri Houston
The world, from a frog's perspective...
Once upon a time, there lived a man named Clarence who had a pet frog named
Felix. Clarence lived a modestly comfortable existence on what he earned
working at the Wal-Mart; but he always dreamed of being rich.
"Felix!" he exclaimed one day, "We're going to be rich! I'm going to
teach you how to fly!"
Felix, of course, was terrified at the prospect: "I can't fly, you
idiot! I'm a frog, not a canary!"
Clarence, disappointed at the initial reaction, told Felix: "That
negative attitude of yours could be a real problem. I'm sending you to
class."
So Felix went to a three day class and learned about problem solving,
time management, and effective communication.... but nothing about
flying.
On the first day of "flying lessons", Clarence could barely control his
excitement (and Felix could barely control his bladder). Clarence
explained that their apartment had 15 floors, and each day Felix would jump
out of a window starting with the first floor eventually getting to the top
floor.
After each jump, Felix would analyze how well he flew, isolate on the most
effective flying techniques, and implement the improved process for the next
flight. By the time they reached the top floor, Felix would surely be able
to fly.
Felix pleaded for his life, but it fell on deaf ears. "He just doesn't
understand how important this is..." thought Clarence, "but I won't let nay-
sayers get in my way."
So, with that, Clarence opened the window and threw Felix out (who
landed with a thud).
Next day (poised for his second flying lesson) Felix again begged not
to be thrown out of the window. With that, Clarence opened his pocket guide
to Managing More Effectively and showed Felix the part about how one must
always expect resistance when implementing new programs.
And with that, he threw Felix out the window. (THUD!)
On the third day (at the third floor) Felix tried a different ploy:
stalling, he asked for a delay in the "project" until better weather
would make flying conditions more favorable.
But Clarence was ready for him: he produced a timeline and pointed to the
third milestone and asked, "You don't want to slip the schedule do you?"
From his training, Felix knew that not jumping today would mean that he
would have to jump TWICE tomorrow.... so he just said: "OK. Let's go."
And out the window he went.
Now understand that Felix really was trying his best. On the fifth day he
flapped his feet madly in a vain attempt to fly. On the sixth day he tied a
small red cape around his neck and tried to think "Superman" thoughts.
Try as he might, though, Felix couldn't fly
By the seventh day, Felix (accepting his fate) no longer begged for
mercy.... he simply looked at Clarence and said, "You know you're
killing me, don't you?"
Clarence pointed out that Felix's performance so far had been less than
exemplary, failing to meet any of the milestone goals he had set for him.
With that, Felix said quietly, "Shut up and open the window," and he
leaped out, taking careful aim on the large jagged rock by the corner
of the building.
And Felix went to that great lily pad in the sky.
Clarence was extremely upset, as his project had failed to meet a
single goal that he set out to accomplish. Felix had not only failed
to fly, he didn't even learn how to steer his flight as he fell like a
sack of cement.... nor did he improve his productivity when Clarence
had told him to "Fall smarter, not harder."
The only thing left for Clarence to do was to analyze the process and
try to determine where it had gone wrong.
After much thought, Clarence smiled and said:
"Next time...... I'm getting a smarter frog!"
---
Credit: zebah@inland.net; forwarded by Orlie
This next bit comes from author Dave Barry. This is from one of his
books, so if you like this, go out and buy all his books in the humo(u)r
section of most bookstores. I'm not sure if he is truly witty or just
insane, but either way, he's a very funny guy...
ARE YOU A GUY???
1) Alien beings from a highly advanced society visit the Earth,
and you are the first human they encounter. As a token of intergalactic
friendship, they present you with a small but incredibly sophisticated
device that is capable of curing all disease, providing an infinite
supply of clean energy, wiping out hunger and poverty, and
permanently eliminating oppression and violence all over the
entire Earth. You decide to:
a. Present it to the president of the United States
b. Present it to the secretary general of the United Nations
c. Take it apart
2) As you grow older, what lost quality of your youthful life
do you miss the most?
a. Innocence
b. Idealism
c. Cherry bombs
3) When is it okay to kiss another male?
a. When you wish to display simple and pure affection wihtout regard
for narrow-minded social conventions
b. When he is the pope (Not on the lips)
c. When he is your brother and you are Al Pacino and this
is the only really sportsmanlike way to let him know that, for
business reasons, you have to have him killed
4) What about hugging another male?
a. If he's your father and at least one of you has a fatal disease
b. If you're performing the Heimlich maneauver (And even in this
case, you should repeatedly shout: "I am just dislodging food
trapped in this male's trachea! I am not in any way aroused!")
c. If you're a professional baseball player and a teammate hits a home
run to win the World Series, you may hug him provided that (1) he is
legally within the basepath, (2) both of you are wearing protective
cups, and (3) you also pound him fraternally with your fist hard
enough to cause fractures
5) Complete this sentence: A funeral is a good time to......
a. remember the deceases and console his loved ones
b. reflect upon the fleeting transience of earthly life
c. tell the joke about the guy who has Alzheimer's disease and cancer
6) In your opinion, the ideal pet is
a. A cat
b. A dog
c. A dog that eats cats
7) You have been seeing a woman for several years. She's attractive and
intelligent, and you always enjoy being with her. One leisurely Sunday
afternoon the two of you are taking it easy - you're watching a football
game; she's reading the papers - when she suddenly, out of the clear blue
sky, tells you that she thinks she really loves you, but she can no longer
bear the uncertainty of not knowing where your relationship is going. She
says she's not asking whether you want to get married; only whether you
believe that you have some kind of future together, What do you say?
a. That you sincerely believe the two of you do have a future, but
you don't want to rush it
b. That although you also have stong feelings for her, you cannot
honestly say that you'll be ready anytime soon to make a lasting
commitment, and you don't want to hurt her by holding out false hope
c. That you cannot believe the Jets called a draw play on third
and seventeen
8) Okay, so you have decided that you truly love a woman and you
want to spend the rest of your life with her - sharing the joys
and the sorrows, the triumphs and the tragedies, and all the
adventures and opportunities that the world has to offer, come
what may. How do you tell her?
a. You take her to a nice restaurant and tell her after dinner
b. You take her for a walk on a moonlit beach, and you say her name,
and when she turns to you, with the sea breeze blowing her hair and
the stars in her eyes, you tell her
c. Tell her what?
9) One weekday morning your wife wakes up feeling ill and asks you
to get your three children ready for school. Your first question to her is:
a. "Do they need to eat anything?"
b. "They're in school already?"
c. "There are three of them?"
10) When is it okay to throw away a set of veteran underwear?
a When it has turned the color of a dead whale and developed new
holes so large that you're not sure which ones were originally
intended for your legs
b. When it is down to eight loosely connected underwear molecules and
has to be handled with tweezers
c. It is never okay to throw away veteran underwear. A real guy checks
the garbage regularly in case somebody - and we are not naming names,
but this would be his wife - is quietly trying to discard his underwear,
which she is frankly jealous of, because the guy seems to have a more
intimate relationship with it than with her
11) What, in your opinion, is the most reasonable explanation for
the fact that Moses led the Israelites all over the place for
forty years before they finally got to the Promised Land?
a. He was being tested
b. He wanted them to really appreciate the Promised Land when they
finally got there
c. He refused to ask directions
12) What is the human race's single greatest achievement?
a. Deomcracy
b. Relgion
c. Remote Control
How to score: Give yourself one point for every time you picked
answer "c." A real guy would score at least 10 on this test. In
fact, a real guy would score at leasst 15, because he would get
the special five-point bonus for knowing the joke about the guy
who has Alzheimer's disease AND cancer.
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