A sheet of paper crossed my desk the other day and as I read it,
realization of a basic truth came over me.  So simple!  So obvious we couldn't
see it.  John Knivlen, Chairman of Palomar Repeater Club, an amateur radio
group, had discovered how IC circuits work.  He says that smoke is the thing
that makes ICs work because every time you let the smoke out of an IC circuit,
it stops working.  He claims to have verified this with thorough testing.
	I was flabbergasted!  Of course!  Smoke makes all things electrical
work.  Remember the last time smoke escaped from your Lucas voltage regulator
Didn't it quit working?  I sat and smiled like an idiot as more of the truth
dawned.  It's the wiring harness that carries the smoke from one device to
another in your Mini, MG or Jag.  And when the harness springs a leak, it lets
the smoke out of everything at once, and then nothing works.  The starter motor
requires large quantities of smoke to operate properly, and that's why the wire
going to it is so large.
	Feeling very smug, I continued to expand my hypothesis.  Why are Lucas
electronics more likely to leak than say Bosch?  Hmmm...  Aha!!!  Lucas is
British, and all things British leak!  British convertible tops leak water,
British engines leak oil, British displacer units leak hydrostatic fluid, and
I might add British tires leak air, and the British defense unit leaks
secrets... so naturally British electronics leak smoke.
		-- Jack Banton, PCC Automotive Electrical School

	A shy teenage boy finally worked up the nerve to give a gift to
Madonna, a young puppy.  It hitched its waggin' to a star.
	A girl spent a couple hours on the phone talking to her two best
friends, Maureen Jones, and Maureen Brown.  When asked by her father why she
had been on the phone so long, she responded "I heard a funny story today
and I've been telling it to the Maureens."
	Three actors, Tom, Fred, and Cec, wanted to do the jousting scene
from Don Quixote for a local TV show.  "I'll play the title role," proposed
Tom.  "Fred can portray Sancho Panza, and Cecil B. De Mille."

	"...A strange enigma is man!"
	"Someone calls him a soul concealed in an animal," I suggested.
	"Winwood Reade is good upon the subject," said Holmes.  "He remarked
that, while the individual man is an insoluble puzzle, in the aggregate he
becomes a mathematical certainty.  You can, for example, never foretell what
any one man will do, but you can say with precision what an average number
will be up to.  Individuals vary, but percentages remain constant.  So says
the statistician."
		-- Sherlock Holmes, "The Sign of Four"

	A woman was in love with fourteen soldiers, it was clearly platoonic.

	A young honeymoon couple were touring southern Florida and happened
to stop at one of the rattlesnake farms along the road.  After seeing the
sights, they engaged in small talk with the man that handled the snakes.
"Gosh!" exclaimed the new bride.  "You certainly have a dangerous job.
Don't you ever get bitten by the snakes?"
	"Yes, upon rare occasions," answered the handler.
	"Well," she continued, "just what do you do when you're bitten by
a snake?"
	"I always carry a razor-sharp knife in my pocket, and as soon as I
am bitten, I make deep criss-cross marks across the fang entry and then
suck the poison from the wound."
	"What, uh... what would happen if you were to accidentally *sit* on
a rattler?" persisted the woman.
	"Ma'am," answered the snake handler, "that will be the day I learn
who my real friends are."

	A young husband with an inferiority complex insisted he was just a
little pebble on the beach.  The marriage counselor told him, "If you wish to
save your marriage, you'd better be a little boulder."

	A young married couple had their first child.  Their original pride
and joy slowly turned to concern however, for after a couple of years the
child had never uttered any form of speech.  They hired the best speech
therapists, doctors, psychiatrists, all to no avail.  The child simply refused
to speak.  One morning when the child was five, while the husband was reading
the paper, and the wife was feeding the dog, the little kid looks up from
his bowl and said, "My cereal's cold."
	The couple is stunned.  The man, in tears, confronts his son.  "Son,
after all these years, why have you waited so long to say something?".
	Shrugs the kid, "Everything's been okay 'til now".

	ACHTUNG!!!
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!!!

	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 sifting through the overwritten remaining blocks of Luke's home
directory, Luke and PDP-1 sped away from /u/lars, across the surface of the
Winchester riding Luke's flying read/write head.  PDP-1 had Luke stop at the
edge of the cylinder overlooking /usr/spool/uucp.
	"Unix-to-Unix Copy Program;" said PDP-1.  "You will never find a more
wretched hive of bugs and flamers.  We must be cautious."
		-- DECWARS

	After the Children of Israel had wandered for thirty-nine years in
	the wilderness, Ferdinand Feghoot arrived to make sure that they
would finally find and enter the Promised Land.  With him, he brought his
favorite robot, faithful old Yewtoo Artoo, to carry his gear and do assorted
camp chores.
	The Israelites soon got over their initial fear of the robot and,
	as the months passed, became very fond of him.  Patriarchs took to
discussing abstruse theological problems with him, and each evening the
children all gathered to hear the many stories with which he was programmed.
Therefore it came as a great shock to them when, just as their journey was
ending, he abruptly wore out.  Even Feghoot couldn't console them.
	"It may be true, Ferdinand Feghoot," said Moses, "that our friend
Yewtoo Artoo was soulless, but we cannot believe it.  He must be properly
interred.  We cannot embalm him as do the Egyptians.  Nor have we wood for
a coffin.  But I do have a most splendid skin from one of Pharoah's own
cattle.  We shall bury him in it."
	Feghoot agreed.  "Yes, let this be his last rusting place." "Rusting?"
	Moses cried. "Not in this dreadful dry desert!"
	"Ah!" sighed Ferdinand Feghoot, shedding a tear, "I fear you do not
realize the full significance of Pharoah's oxhide!"
		-- Grendel Briarton "Through Time & Space With Ferdinand
		   Feghoot!"

	After watching an extremely attractive maternity-ward patient
earnestly thumbing her way through a telephone directory for several
minutes, a hospital orderly finally asked if he could be of some help.
	"No, thanks," smiled the young mother, "I'm just looking for a
name for my baby."
	"But the hospital supplies a special booklet that lists hundreds
of first names and their meanings," said the orderly.
	"That won't help," said the woman, "my baby already has a first
name."

	All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and
how to be I learned in kindergarten.  Wisdom was not at the top of the
graduate-school mountain, but there in the sandpile at Sunday School.
These are the things I learned:
	Share everything.
	Play fair.
	Don't hit people.
	Put things back where you found them.
	Clean up your own mess.
	Don't take things that aren't yours.
	Say you're sorry when you hurt someone.
	Wash your hands before you eat.
	Flush.
	Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
	Live a balanced life -- learn some and think some and draw and
paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
	Take a nap every afternoon.
	When you go out into the world, watch for traffic, hold hands,
and stick together.
	Be aware of wonder.  Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam
cup:  The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows
how or why, but we are all like that.
	Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in
the Styrofoam cup -- they all die.  So do we.
	And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you
learned -- the biggest word of all -- LOOK.
	Everything you need to know is in there somewhere.  The Golden
Rule and love and basic sanitation.  Ecology and politics and equality
and sane living.
	[...] Think what a better world it would be if we all -- the
whole world -- had cookies and milk about three o'clock every afternoon
and then lay down with our blankets for a nap.  Or if all governments
had as a basic policy to always put things back where they found them
and to clean up their own mess.
	And it is still true, no matter how old you are -- when you go
out into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.
		-- Robert Fulghum, "All I Ever Really Needed to Know
		   I Learned in Kindergarten"

	All that you touch,		And all you create,
	All that you see,		And all you destroy,
	All that you taste,		All that you do,
	All you feel,			And all you say,
	And all that you love,		All that you eat,
	And all that you hate,		And everyone you meet,
	All you distrust,		All that you slight,
	All you save,			And everyone you fight,
	And all that you give,		And all that is now,
	And all that you deal,		And all that is gone,
	All that you buy,		And all that's to come,
	Beg, borrow or steal,		And everything under the sun is
						in tune,
					But the sun is eclipsed
					By the moon.

There is no dark side of the moon... really... matter of fact it's all dark.
		-- Pink Floyd, "Dark Side of the Moon"

	America, Russia and Japan are sending up a two year shuttle mission
with one astronaut from each country.  Since it's going to be two long, lonely
years up there, each may bring any form of entertainment weighing 150 pounds
or less.  The American approaches the NASA board and asks to take his 125 lb.
wife. They approve.
	The Japanese astronaut says, "I've always wanted to learn Latin.  I
want 100 lbs. of textbooks."  The NASA board approves.  The Russian astronaut
thinks for a second and says, "Two years...  all right, I want 150 pounds of
the best Cuban cigars ever made."  Again, NASA okays it.
	Two years later, the shuttle lands and everyone is gathered outside
to welcome back the astronauts.  Well, it's obvious what the American's been
up to, he and his wife are each holding an infant.  The crowd cheers.  The
Japanese astronaut steps out and makes a 10 minute speech in absolutely
perfect Latin.  The crowd doesn't understand a word of it, but they're
impressed and they cheer again.  The Russian astronaut stomps out, clenches
the podium until his knuckles turn white, glares at the first row and
screams: "Anybody got a match?"

	An airplane pilot got engaged to two very pretty women at the same
time.  One was named Edith; the other named Kate.  They met, discovered they
had the same fiancee, and told him.  "Get out of our lives you rascal.  We'll
teach you that you can't have your Kate and Edith, too."

	An architect's first work is apt to be spare and clean.  He knows
he doesn't know what he's doing, so he does it carefully and with great
restraint.
	As he designs the first work, frill after frill and embellishment
after embellishment occur to him.  These get stored away to be used "next
time".  Sooner or later the first system is finished, and the architect,
with firm confidence and a demonstrated mastery of that class of systems,
is ready to build a second system.
	This second is the most dangerous system a man ever designs.  When
he does his third and later ones, his prior experiences will confirm each
other as to the general characteristics of such systems, and their differences
will identify those parts of his experience that are particular and not
generalizable.
	The general tendency is to over-design the second system, using all
the ideas and frills that were cautiously sidetracked on the first one.
The result, as Ovid says, is a "big pile".
		-- Frederick Brooks, Jr., "The Mythical Man-Month"

	An eighty-year-old woman is rocking away the afternoon on her
porch when she sees an old, tarnished lamp sitting near the steps.  She
picks it up, rubs it gently, and lo and behold a genie appears!  The genie
tells the woman the he will grant her any three wishes her heart desires.
	After a bit of thought, she says, "I wish I were young and
beautiful!"  And POOF!  In a cloud of smoke she becomes a young, beautiful,
voluptuous woman.
	After a little more thought, she says, "I would like to be rich
for the rest of my life."  And POOF!  When the smoke clears, there are
stacks and stacks of money lying on the porch.
	The genie then says, "Now, madam, what is your final wish?"
	"Well," says the woman, "I would like for you to transform my
faithful old cat, whom I have loved dearly for fifteen years, into a young
handsome prince!"
	And with another billow of smoke the cat is changed into a tall,
handsome, young man, with dark hair, dressed in a dashing uniform.
	As they gaze at each other in adoration, the prince leans over to
the woman and whispers into her ear, "Now, aren't you sorry you had me
fixed?"

	An elderly man stands in line for hours at a Warsaw meat store (meat
is severely rationed).  When the butcher comes out at the end of the day and
announces that there is no meat left, the man flies into a rage.
	"What is this?" he shouts.  "I fought against the Nazis, I worked hard
all my life, I've been a loyal citizen, and now you tell me I can't even buy a
piece of meat?  This rotten system stinks!"
	Suddenly a thuggish man in a black leather coat sidles up and murmurs
"Take it easy, comrade.  Remember what would have happened if you had made an
outburst like that only a few years ago" -- and he points an imaginary gun to
this head and pulls the trigger.
	The old man goes home, and his wife says, "So they're out of meat
again?"
	"It's worse than that," he replies.  "They're out of bullets."
		-- making the rounds in Warsaw, 1987

	An Englishman, a Frenchman and an American are captured by cannibals.
The leader of the tribe comes up to them and says, "Even though you are about
to killed, your deaths will not be in vain.  Every part of your body will be
used.  Your flesh will be eaten, for my people are hungry.  Your hair will be
woven into clothing, for my people are naked.  Your bones will be ground up
and made into medicine, for my people are sick.  Your skin will be stretched
over canoe frames, for my people need transportation.  We are a fair people,
and we offer you a chance to kill yourself with our ceremonial knife."
	The Englishman accepts the knife and yells, "God Save the Queen",
while plunging the knife into his heart.
	The Frenchman removes the knife from the fallen body, and yells,
"Vive la France", while plunging the knife into his heart.
	The American removes the knife from the fallen body, and yells,
while stabbing himself all over his body, "Here's your lousy canoe!"