A hard-luck actor who appeared in one colossal disaster after another
finally got a break, a broken leg to be exact.  Someone pointed out that it's
the first time the poor fellow's been in the same cast for more than a week.

	A horrible little boy came up to me and said, "You know in your
book The Martian Chronicles?"
	I said, "Yes?"
	He said, "You know where you talk about Deimos rising in the
East?"
	I said, "Yes?"
	He said "No." -- So I hit him.
		-- attributed to Ray Bradbury

	A horse breeder has his young colts bottle-fed after they're three
days old.  He heard that a foal and his mummy are soon parted.

	A housewife, an accountant and a lawyer were asked to add 2 and 2.
	The housewife replied, "Four!".
	The accountant said, "It's either 3 or 4.  Let me run those figures
through my spread sheet one more time."
	The lawyer pulled the drapes, dimmed the lights and asked in a
hushed voice, "How much do you want it to be?"

	A lawyer named Strange was shopping for a tombstone.  After he had
made his selection, the stonecutter asked him what inscription he
would like on it.  "Here lies an honest man and a lawyer," responded the
lawyer.
	"Sorry, but I can't do that," replied the stonecutter.  "In this
state, it's against the law to bury two people in the same grave.  However,
I could put `here lies an honest lawyer', if that would be okay."
	"But that won't let people know who it is" protested the lawyer.
	"Certainly will," retorted the stonecutter.  "people will read it
and exclaim, "That's Strange!"

	A little dog goes into a saloon in the Wild West, and beckons to
the bartender.  "Hey, bartender, gimmie a whiskey."
	The bartender ignores him.
	"Hey bartender, gimmie a whiskey."
	Still ignored.
	"HEY BARMAN!!  GIMMIE A WHISKEY!!"
	The bartender takes out his six-shooter and shoots the dog in the
leg, and the dog runs out the saloon, howling in pain.
	Three years later, the wee dog appears again, wearing boots,
jeans, chaps, a Stetson, gun belt, and guns.  He ambles slowly into the
saloon, goes up to the bar, leans over it, and says to the bartender,
"I'm here t'git the man that shot muh paw."

	A man enters a pet shop, seeking to purchase a parrot.  He points
to a fine colorful bird and asks how much it costs.
	When he is told it costs 70,000 zlotys, he whistles in amazement
and asks why it is so much.  "Well, the bird is fluent in Italian and
French and can recite the periodic table."  He points to another bird
and is told that it costs 90,000 zlotys because it speaks French and
German, can knit and can curse in Latin.
	Finally the customer asks about a drab gray bird.  "Ah," he is
told, "that one is 150,000."
	"Why, what can it do?" he asks.
	"Well," says the shopkeeper, "to tell you the truth, he doesn't
do anything, but the other birds call him Mr. Secretary."
		-- being told in Poland, 1987

	A man from AI walked across the mountains to SAIL to see the Master,
Knuth.  When he arrived, the Master was nowhere to be found.  "Where is the
wise one named Knuth?" he asked a passing student.
	"Ah," said the student, "you have not heard. He has gone on a
pilgrimage across the mountains to the temple of AI to seek out new
disciples."
	Hearing this, the man was Enlightened.

	A 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 met a beautiful young woman in a bar.  They got along well,
shared dinner, and had a marvelous evening.  When he left her, he told her
that he had really enjoyed their time together, and hoped to see her again,
soon.  Smiling yes, she gave him her phone number.
	The next day, he called her up and asked her to go dancing.  She
agreed.  As they talked, he jokingly asked her what her favorite flower was.
Realizing his intentions, she told him that he shouldn't bring her flowers
-- if he wanted to bring her a gift, well, he should bring her a Swiss Army
knife!
	Surprised, and not a little intrigued, he spent a large part of the
afternoon finding a particularly unusual one.  Arriving at her apartment
he immediately presented her with the knife.  She ooohed and ahhhed over it
for a minute, and then carefully placed it in a drawer, that the man couldn't
help but see was full of Swiss Army knives.
	Surprised, he asked her why she had collected so many.
	"Well, I'm young and attractive now", blushed the woman, "but that
won't always be true.  And boy scouts will do anything for a Swiss Army knife!"

	A man pleaded innocent of any wrong doing when caught by the police
during a raid at the home of a mobster, excusing himself by claiming that he
was making a bolt for the door.

	A man walked into a bar with his alligator and asked the bartender,
"Do you serve lawyers here?".
	"Sure do," replied the bartender.
	"Good," said the man.  "Give me a beer, and I'll have a lawyer for
my 'gator."

	A man was reading The Canterbury Tales one Saturday morning, when his
wife asked "What have you got there?"  Replied he, "Just my cup and Chaucer."

	A man who keeps stealing mopeds is an obvious cycle-path.

	A manager asked a programmer how long it would take him to finish the
program on which he was working.  "I will be finished tomorrow," the programmer
promptly replied.
	"I think you are being unrealistic," said the manager. "Truthfully,
how long will it take?"
	The programmer thought for a moment.  "I have some features that I wish
to add.  This will take at least two weeks," he finally said.
	"Even that is too much to expect," insisted the manager, "I will be
satisfied if you simply tell me when the program is complete."
	The programmer agreed to this.
	Several years slated, the manager retired.  On the way to his
retirement lunch, he discovered the programmer asleep at his terminal.
He had been programming all night.
		-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"

	A manager was about to be fired, but a programmer who worked for him
invented a new program that became popular and sold well.  As a result, the
manager retained his job.
	The manager tried to give the programmer a bonus, but the programmer
refused it, saying, "I wrote the program because I though it was an interesting
concept, and thus I expect no reward."
	The manager, upon hearing this, remarked, "This programmer, though he
holds a position of small esteem, understands well the proper duty of an
employee.  Lets promote him to the exalted position of management consultant!"
	But when told this, the programmer once more refused, saying, "I exist
so that I can program.  If I were promoted, I would do nothing but waste
everyone's time.  Can I go now?  I have a program that I'm working on."
		-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"

	A manager went to his programmers and told them: "As regards to your
work hours: you are going to have to come in at nine in the morning and leave
at five in the afternoon."  At this, all of them became angry and several
resigned on the spot.
	So the manager said: "All right, in that case you may set your own
working hours, as long as you finish your projects on schedule."  The
programmers, now satisfied, began to come in a noon and work to the wee
hours of the morning.
		-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"

	A manager went to the master programmer and showed him the requirements
document for a new application.  The manager asked the master: "How long will
it take to design this system if I assign five programmers to it?"
	"It will take one year," said the master promptly.
	"But we need this system immediately or even sooner!  How long will it
take it I assign ten programmers to it?"
	The master programmer frowned.  "In that case, it will take two years."
	"And what if I assign a hundred programmers to it?"
	The master programmer shrugged.  "Then the design will never be
completed," he said.
		-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"

	A master programmer passed a novice programmer one day.  The master
noted the novice's preoccupation with a hand-held computer game.  "Excuse me",
he said, "may I examine it?"
	The novice bolted to attention and handed the device to the master.
"I see that the device claims to have three levels of play: Easy, Medium,
and Hard", said the master.  "Yet every such device has another level of play,
where the device seeks not to conquer the human, nor to be conquered by the
human."
	"Pray, great master," implored the novice, "how does one find this
mysterious setting?"
	The master dropped the device to the ground and crushed it under foot.
And suddenly the novice was enlightened.
		-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"

	A master was explaining the nature of the Tao to one of his novices,
"The Tao is embodied in all software -- regardless of how insignificant,"
said the master.
	"Is the 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.
		-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"