figure out how to get the bark on. -- Woody Allen As the trials of life continue to take their toll, remember that there is always a future in Computer Maintenance. -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorada" As Will Rogers would have said, "There is no such things as a free variable." As with most fine things, chocolate has its season. There is a simple memory aid that you can use to determine whether it is the correct time to order chocolate dishes: any month whose name contains the letter A, E, or U is the proper time for chocolate. -- Sandra Boynton, "Chocolate: The Consuming Passion" As Zeus said to Narcissus, "Watch yourself." Ask Not for whom the Bell Tolls, and You will Pay only the Station-to-Station rate. Ask not for whom the telephone bell tolls ... if thou art in the bathtub, it tolls for thee. Ask your boss to reconsider -- it's so difficult to take "Go to hell" for an answer. Ass, n.: The masculine of "lass". At a recent meeting in Snowmass, Colorado, a participant from Los Angeles fainted from hyperoxygenation, and we had to hold his head under the exhaust of a bus until he revived. At Group L, Stoffel oversees six first-rate programmers, a managerial challenge roughly comparable to herding cats. -- The Washington Post Magazine, June 9, 1985 ... at least I thought I was dancing, 'til somebody stepped on my hand. -- J. B. White At the source of every error which is blamed on the computer you will find at least two human errors, including the error of blaming it on the computer. Atlee is a very modest man. And with reason. -- Winston Churchill Automobile, n.: A four-wheeled vehicle that runs up hills and down pedestrians. Avoid Quiet and Placid persons unless you are in Need of Sleep. -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorada" Avoid reality at all costs. Bacchus, n.: A convenient deity invented by the ancients as an excuse for getting drunk. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" Bagdikian's Observation: Trying to be a first-rate reporter on the average American newspaper is like trying to play Bach's "St. Matthew Passion" on a ukelele. Baker's First Law of Federal Geometry: A block grant is a solid mass of money surrounded on all sides by governors. Ban the bomb. Save the world for conventional warfare. Bank error in your favor. Collect $200. Barach's Rule: An alcoholic is a person who drinks more than his own physician. Barometer, n.: An ingenious instrument which indicates what kind of weather we are having. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" Barth's Distinction: There are two types of people: those who divide people into two types, and those who don't. Baruch's Observation: If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Basic, n.: A programming language. Related to certain social diseases in that those who have it will not admit it in polite company. Be a better psychiatrist and the world will beat a psychopath to your door. BE ALERT!!!! (The world needs more lerts ...) Be assured that a walk through the ocean of most Souls would scarcely get your Feet wet. Fall not in Love, therefore: it will stick to your face. -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorada" Be careful of reading health books, you might die of a misprint. -- Mark Twain Be different: conform. Be free and open and breezy! Enjoy! Things won't get any better so get used to it. Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors and miss -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love" Behold the warranty ... the bold print giveth and the fine print taketh away. Beifeld's Principle: The probability of a young man meeting a desirable and receptive young female increases by pyramidal progression when he is already in the company of: (1) a date, (2) his wife, (3) a better looking and richer male friend. Bell Labs Unix -- Reach out and grep someone. "Benson, you are so free of the ravages of intelligence" -- Time Bandits Besides the device, the box should contain: * Eight little rectangular snippets of paper that say "WARNING" * A plastic packet containing four 5/17 inch pilfer grommets and two club-ended 6/93 inch boxcar prawns. YOU WILL NEED TO SUPPLY: a matrix wrench and 60,000 feet of tram cable. IF ANYTHING IS DAMAGED OR MISSING: You IMMEDIATELY should turn to your spouse and say: "Margaret, you know why this country can't make a car that can get all the way through the drive-through at Burger King without a major transmission overhaul? Because nobody cares, that's why." WARNING: This is assuming your spouse's name is Margaret. -- Dave Barry, "Read This First!" better !pout !cry better watchout lpr why santa claus town cat /etc/passwd >list ncheck list ncheck list cat list | grep naughty >nogiftlist cat list | grep nice >giftlist santa claus town who | grep sleeping who | grep awake who | egrep 'bad|good' for (goodness sake) { be good } "Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it." -- Donald Knuth Beware of low-flying butterflies. Beware of Programmers who carry screwdrivers. -- Leonard Brandwein "Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before," Bokonon tells us. "He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way." -- Kurt Vonnegut, "Cat's Cradle" Beware of the Turing Tar-pit in which everything is possible but nothing of interest is easy. Binary, adj.: Possessing the ability to have friends of both sexes. Bipolar, adj.: Refers to someone who has homes in Nome, Alaska, and Buffalo, New York Birth, n.: The first and direst of all disasters. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" Bizarreness is the essence of the exotic Blessed are they who Go Around in Circles, for they Shall be Known as Wheels. BLISS is ignorance Blood is thicker than water, and much tastier. Board the windows, up your car insurance, and don't leave any booze in plain sight. It's St. Patrick's day in Chicago again. The legend has it that St. Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland. In fact, he was arrested for drunk driving. The snakes left because people kept throwing up on them. Boling's postulate: If you're feeling good, don't worry. You'll get over it. Bolub's Fourth Law of Computerdom: Project teams detest weekly progress reporting because it so vividly manifests their lack of progress. Bombeck's Rule of Medicine: Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died. Boob's Law: You always find something in the last place you look. Bore, n.: A person who talks when you wish him to listen. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" Boren's Laws: (1) When in charge, ponder. (2) When in trouble, delegate. (3) When in doubt, mumble. Boss, n.: According to the Oxford English Dictionary, in the Middle Ages the words "boss" and "botch" were largely synonymous, except that boss, in addition to meaning "a supervisor of workers" also meant "an ornamental stud." Boston, n.: Ludwig van Beethoven being jeered by 50,000 sports fans for finishing second in the Irish jig competition. Boy, n.: A noise with dirt on it. Bradley's Bromide: If computers get too powerful, we can organize them into a committee -- that will do them in. Brady's First Law of Problem Solving: When confronted by a difficult problem, you can solve it more easily by reducing it to the question, "How would the Lone Ranger have handled this?" Brain fried -- Core dumped Brain, n.: The apparatus with which we think that we think. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" Brain, v. [as in "to brain"]: To rebuke bluntly, but not pointedly; to dispel a source of error in an opponent. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" Breast Feeding should not be attempted by fathers with hairy chests, since they can make the baby sneeze and give it wind. -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" Bride, n.: A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" Bringing computers into the home won't change either one, but may revitalize the corner saloon. British Israelites: The British Israelites believe the white Anglo-Saxons of Britain to be descended from the ten lost tribes of Israel deported by Sargon of Assyria on the fall of Sumeria in 721 B.C. ... They further believe that the future can be foretold by the measurements of the Great Pyramid, which probably means it will be big and yellow and in the hand of the Arabs. They also believe that if you sleep with your head under the pillow a fairy will come and take all your teeth. -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" Broad-mindedness, n.: The result of flattening high-mindedness out. Brook's Law: Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later Brook's Law: Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later. Brooke's Law: Whenever a system becomes completely defined, some damn fool discovers something which either abolishes the system or expands it beyond recognition. Bubble Memory, n.: A derogatory term, usually referring to a person's intelligence. See also "vacuum tube". Bucy's Law: Nothing is ever accomplished by a reasonable man. Bug, n.: An aspect of a computer program which exists because the PROGRAMMER was thinking about Jumbo Jacks or stock options when s/he wrote the program. Fortunately, the second-to-last bug has just been fixed. -- Ray Simard Bug: Small living things that small living boys throw on small living girls. BULLWINKLE: "You just leave that to my pal. He's the brains of the outfit." GENERAL: "What does that make YOU?" BULLWINKLE: "What else? An executive..." -- Jay Ward Bumper sticker: "All the parts falling off this car are of the very finest British manufacture" Bureaucrat, n.: A politician who has tenure. ... But as records of courts and justice are admissible, it can easily be proved that powerful and malevolent magicians once existed and were a scourge to mankind. The evidence (including confession) upon which certain women were convicted of witchcraft and executed was without a flaw; it is still unimpeachable. The judges' decisions based on it were sound in logic and in law. Nothing in any existing court was ever more thoroughly proved than the charges of witchcraft and sorcery for which so many suffered death. If there were no witches, human testimony and human reason are alike destitute of value. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" ... But if we laugh with derision, we will never understand. Human intellectual capacity has not altered for thousands of years so far as we can tell. If intelligent people invested intense energy in issues that now seem foolish to us, then the failure lies in our understanding of their world, not in their distorted perceptions. Even the standard example of ancient nonsense -- the debate about angels on pinheads -- makes sense once you realize that theologians were not discussing whether five or eighteen would fit, but whether a pin could house a finite or an infinite number. -- S. J. Gould, "Wide Hats and Narrow Minds" But in our enthusiasm, we could not resist a radical overhaul of the system, in which all of its major weaknesses have been exposed, analyzed, and replaced with new weaknesses. -- Bruce Leverett, "Register Allocation in Optimizing Compilers" But scientists, who ought to know Assure us that it must be so. Oh, let us never, never doubt What nobody is sure about. -- Hilaire Belloc But soft you, the fair Ophelia: Ope not thy ponderous and marble jaws, But get thee to a nunnery -- go! -- Mark "The Bard" Twain But the greatest Electrical Pioneer of them all was Thomas Edison, who was a brilliant inventor despite the fact that he had little formal education and lived in New Jersey. Edison's first major invention in 1877, was the phonograph, which could soon be found in thousands of American homes, where it basically sat until 1923, when the record was invented. But Edison's greatest achievement came in 1879, when he invented the electric company. Edison's design was a brilliant adaptation of the simple electrical circuit: the electric company sends electricity through a wire to a customer, then immediately gets the electricity back through another wire, then (this is the brilliant part) sends it right back to the customer again. This means that an electric company can sell a customer the same batch of electricity thousands of times a day and never get caught, since very few customers take the time to examine their electricity closely. In fact the last year any new electricity was generated in the United States was 1937; the electric companies have been merely re-selling it ever since, which is why they have so much free time to apply for rate increases. -- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?" "But this has taken us far afield from interface, which is not a bad place to be, since I particularly want to move ahead to the kludge. Why do people have so much trouble understanding the kludge? What is a kludge, after all, but not enough Ks, not enough ROMs, not enough RAMs, poor quality interface and too few bytes to go around? Have I explained yet about the bytes?" "But what we need to know is, do people want nasally-insertable computers?" Buzz off, Banana Nose; Relieve mine eyes Of hateful soreness, purge mine ears of corn; Less dear than army ants in apple pies Art thou, old prune-face, with thy chestnuts worn, Dropt from thy peeling lips like lousy fruit; Like honeybees upon the perfum'd rose They suck, and like the double-breasted suit Are out of date; therefore, Banana Nose, Go fly a kite, thy welcome's overstayed; And stem the produce of thy waspish wits: Thy logick, like thy locks, is disarrayed; Thy cheer, like thy complexion, is the pits. Be off, I say; go bug somebody new, Scram, beat it, get thee hence, and nuts to you. By doing just a little every day, you can gradually let the task completely overwhelm you. "By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote. In fact, it is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to invent. (R. Emerson)" -- Quoted from a fortune cookie program (whose author claims, "Actually, stealing IS easier.") [to which I reply, "You think it's easy for me to misconstrue all these misquotations?!?"] Bypasses are devices that allow some people to dash from point A to point B very fast while other people dash from point B to point A very fast. People living at point C, being a point directly in between, are often given to wonder what's so great about point A that so many people from point B are so keen to get there and what's so great about point B that so many people from point A are so keen to get _____there. They oftenwish that people would just once and for all work out where the hell they wanted to be. -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" C, n.: A programming language that is sort of like Pascal except more like assembly except that it isn't very much like either one, or anything else. It is either the best language available to the art today, or it isn't. -- Ray Simard Cabbage, n.: A familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man's head. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" Cahn's Axiom: When all else fails, read the instructions. California is a fine place to live -- if you happen to be an orange. -- Fred Allen California, n.: From Latin "calor", meaning "heat" (as in English "calorie" or Spanish "caliente"); and "fornia'" for "sexual intercourse" or "fornication." Hence: Tierra de California, "the land of hot sex." -- Ed Moran Call on God, but row away from the rocks. -- Indian proverb "Calling J-Man Kink. Calling J-Man Kink. Hash missle sighted, target Los Angeles. Disregard personal feelings about city and intercept." "Calvin Coolidge looks as if he had been weaned on a pickle." -- Alice Roosevelt Longworth "Calvin Coolidge was the greatest man who ever came out of Plymouth Corner, Vermont." -- Clarence Darrow Canada Bill Jone's Motto: It's morally wrong to allow suckers to keep their money. Supplement: A .44 magnum beats four aces. Canada Post doesn't really charge 32 cents for a stamp. It's 2 cents for postage and 30 cents for storage. -- Gerald Regan, Cabinet Minister, 12/31/83 Financial Post Cancel me not -- for what then shall remain? Abscissas, some mantissas, modules, modes, A root or two, a torus and a node: The inverse of my verse, a null domain. -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" CANCER (June 21 - July 22) You are sympathetic and understanding to other people's problems. They think you are a sucker. You are always putting things off. That's why you'll never make anything of yourself. Most welfare recipients are Cancer people. CAPRICORN (Dec 23 - Jan 19) You are conservative and afraid of taking risks. You don't do much of anything and are lazy. There has never been a Capricorn of any importance. Capricorns should avoid standing still for too long as they take root and become trees. Captain Penny's Law: You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you Can't Fool Mom. Carelessly planned projects take three times longer to complete than expected. Carefully planned projects take four times longer to complete than expected, mostly because the planners expect their planning to reduce the time it takes. Carperpetuation (kar' pur pet u a shun), n.: The act, when vacuuming, of running over a string at least a dozen times, reaching over and picking it up, examining it, then putting it back down to give the vacuum one more chance. -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" Cauliflower is nothing but Cabbage with a College Education. -- Mark Twain Caution: breathing may be hazardous to your health. CChheecckk yyoouurr dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh.. Celebrate Hannibal Day this year. Take an elephant to lunch. Census Taker to Housewife: Did you ever have the measles, and, if so, how many? Cerebus: I'd love to lick apricot brandy out of your navel. Jaka: Look, Cerebus-- Jaka has to tell you ... something Cerebus: If Cerebus had a navel, would you lick apricot brandy out of it? Jaka: Ugh! Cerebus: You don't like apricot brandy? -- Cerebus #6, "The Secret" Certain old men prefer to rise at dawn, taking a cold bath and a long walk with an empty stomach and otherwise mortifying the flesh. They then point with pride to these practices as the cause of their sturdy health and ripe years; the truth being that they are hearty and old, not because of their habits, but in spite of them. The reason we find only robust persons doing this thing is that it has killed all the others who have tried it. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" Certainly there are things in life that money can't buy, but it's very funny-- Did you ever try buying then without money? -- Ogden Nash Character Density: the number of very weird people in the office. Chemicals, n.: Noxious substances from which modern foods are made. Chicago, n.: Where the dead still vote ... early and often! Chicken Little was right. Chicken Soup, n.: An ancient miracle drug containing equal parts of aureomycin, cocaine, interferon, and TLC. The only ailment chicken soup can't cure is neurotic dependence on one's mother. -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish" Children are natural mimic who act like their parents despite every effort to teach them good manners. Children aren't happy without something to ignore, And that's what parents were created for. -- Ogden Nash Children seldom misquote you. In fact, they usually repeat word for word what you shouldn't have said. Chism's Law of Completion: The amount of time required to complete a government project is precisely equal to the length of time already spent on it. Chisolm's First Corollary to Murphy's Second Law: When things just can't possibly get any worse, they will. Christ: A man who was born at least 5,000 years ahead of his time. Churchill's Commentary on Man: Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on. Cigarette, n.: A fire at one end, a fool at the other, and a bit of tobacco in between. Cinemuck, n.: The combination of popcorn, soda, and melted chocolate which covers the floors of movie theaters. -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" Cleanliness is next to impossible. Cleveland still lives. God ____must be dead. "Cleveland? Yes, I spent a week there one day." Cloning is the sincerest form of flattery. Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society. -- Mark Twain Cocaine -- the thinking man's Dristan. Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum -- "I think that I think, therefore I think that I am." -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" Cold, adj.: When the local flashers are handing out written descriptions. Cold, adj.: When the politicians walk around with their hands in their own pockets. Collaboration, n.: A literary partnership based on the false assumption that the other fellow can spell. College football is a game which would be much more interesting if the faculty played instead of the students, and even more interesting if the trustees played. There would be a great increase in broken arms, legs, and necks, and simultaneously an appreciable diminution in the loss to humanity. -- H. L. Mencken Colvard's Logical Premises: All probabilities are 50%. Either a thing will happen or it won't. Colvard's Unconscionable Commentary: This is especially true when dealing with someone you're attracted to. Grelb's Commentary Likelihoods, however, are 90% against you. Come, every frustum longs to be a cone, And every vector dreams of matrices. Hark to the gentle gradient of the breeze: It whispers of a more ergodic zone. -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" Come, let us hasten to a higher plane, Where dyads tread the fairy fields of Venn, Their indices bedecked from one to _n, Commingled in an endless Markov chain! -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" Command, n.: Statement presented by a human and accepted by a computer in such a manner as to make the human feel as if he is in control. COMMENT Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song, A medley of extemporanea; And love is thing that can never go wrong; And I am Marie of Roumania. -- Dorothy Parker Commitment, n.: Commitment can be illustrated by a breakfast of ham and eggs. The chicken was involved, the pig was committed. Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen. -- Albert Einstein Computer programmers do it byte by byte Computer Science is merely the post-Turing decline in formal systems theory. Computers are not intelligent. They only think they are. Conceit causes more conversation than wit. -- LaRouchefoucauld Concept, n.: Any "idea" for which an outside consultant billed you more than $25,000. Condense soup, not books! Confession is good for the soul only in the sense that a tweed coat is good for dandruff. -- Peter de Vries Confidence is the feeling you have before you understand the situation. Congratulations! You have purchased an extremely fine device that would give you thousands of years of trouble-free service, except that you undoubtably will destroy it via some typical bonehead consumer maneuver. Which is why we ask you to PLEASE FOR GOD'S SAKE READ THIS OWNER'S MANUAL CAREFULLY BEFORE YOU UNPACK THE DEVICE. YOU ALREADY UNPACKED IT, DIDN'T YOU? YOU UNPACKED IT AND PLUGGED IT IN AND TURNED IT ON AND FIDDLED WITH THE KNOBS, AND NOW YOUR CHILD, THE SAME CHILD WHO ONCE SHOVED A POLISH SAUSAGE INTO YOUR VIDEOCASSETTE RECORDED AND SET IT ON "FAST FORWARD", THIS CHILD ALSO IS FIDDLING WITH HE KNOBS, RIGHT? AND YOU'RE JUST NOW STARTING TO READ THE INSTRUCTIONS, RIGHT??? WE MIGHT AS WELL JUST BREAK THESE DEVICES RIGHT AT THE FACTORY BEFORE WE SHIP THEM OUT, YOU KNOW THAT? -- Dave Barry, "Read This First!" Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody is looking -- H. L. Mencken Conscience is what hurts when everything else feels so good. Consultants are mystical people who ask a company for a number and then give it back to them. "Contrariwise," continued Tweedledee, "if it was so, it might be, and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic!" -- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass" Conversation, n.: A vocal competition in which the one who is catching his breath is called the listener. Conway's Law: In any organization there will always be one person who knows what is going on. This person must be fired. Coronation, n.: The ceremony of investing a sovereign with the outward and visible signs of his divine right to be blown skyhigh with a dynamite bomb. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" Corrupt, adj.: In politics, holding an office of trust or profit. Corruption is not the #1 priority of the Police Commissioner. His job is to enforce the law and fight crime. -- P.B.A. President E. J. Kiernan Coward, n.: One who in a perilous emergency thinks with his legs. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" Crash programs fail because they are based on the theory that, with nine women pregnant, you can get a baby a month. -- Wernher von Braun Crime does not pay ... as well as politics. -- A. E. Newman Critic, n.: A person who boasts himself hard to please because nobody tries to please him. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" Cynic, n.: A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be. Hence the custom among the Scythians of plucking out a cynic's eyes to improve his vision. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" Cynic, n.: One who looks through rose-colored glasses with a jaundiced eye. Darth Vader sleeps with a Teddywookie. Dawn, n.: The time when men of reason go to bed. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" Day of inquiry. You will be subpoenaed. Dealing with failure is easy: work hard to improve. Success is also easy to handle: you've solved the wrong problem. Work hard to improve. Dear Lord: I just want *___one* one-armed manager so I never have to hear "On the other hand", again. Dear Miss Manners: My home economics teacher says that one must never place one's elbows on the table. However, I have read that one elbow, in between courses, is all right. Which is correct? Gentle Reader: For the purpose of answering examinations in your home economics class, your teacher is correct. Catching on to this principle of education may be of even greater importance to you now than learning correct current table manners, vital as Miss Manners believes that is. Dear Miss Manners: Please list some tactful ways of removing a man's saliva from your face. Gentle Reader: Please list some decent ways of acquiring a man's saliva on your face ... Death is God's way of telling you not to be such a wise guy. Death is life's way of telling you you've been fired. -- R. Geis Death is Nature's way of recycling human beings. Death is nature's way of telling you to slow down Decisionmaker, n.: The person in your office who was unable to form a task force before the music stopped. Decisions of the judges will be final unless shouted down by a really overwhelming majority of the crowd present. Abusive and obscene language may not be used by contestants when addressing members of the judging panel, or, conversely, by members of the judging panel when addressing contestants (unless struck by a boomerang). -- Mudgeeraba Creek Emu-Riding and Boomerang-Throwing Assoc. Deck Us All With Boston Charlie Deck us all with Boston Charlie, Walla Walla, Wash., an' Kalamazoo! Nora's freezin' on the trolley, Swaller dollar cauliflower, alleygaroo! Don't we know archaic barrel, Lullaby Lilla Boy, Louisville Lou. Trolley Molly don't love Harold, Boola boola Pensacoola hullabaloo! -- Walt Kelly "Deep" is a word like "theory" or "semantic" -- it implies all sorts of marvelous things. It's one thing to be able to say "I've got a theory", quite another to say "I've got a semantic theory", but, ah, those who can claim "I've got a deep semantic theory", they are truly blessed. -- Randy Davis DELETE A FORTUNE! Don't some of these fortunes just drive you nuts?! Wouldn't you like to see some of them deleted from the system? You can! Just mail to "fortune" with the fortune you hate most, and we MIGHT make sure it gets expunged. Deliberation, n.: The act of examining one's bread to determine which side it is buttered on. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" "Deliver yesterday, code today, think tomorrow." Democracy is a form of government in which it is permitted to wonder aloud what the country could do under first-class management. -- Senator Soaper Democracy is a form of government that substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few. -- G. B. Shaw Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by Jackasses. -- H. L. Mencken Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time. -- E. B. White Dentist, n.: A Prestidigitator who, putting metal in one's mouth, pulls coins out of one's pockets. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" DETERIORATA Go placidly amid the noise and waste, And remember what comfort there may be in owning a piece thereof. Avoid quiet and passive persons, unless you are in need of sleep. Rotate your tires. Speak glowingly of those greater than yourself, And heed well their advice -- even though they be turkeys. Know what to kiss -- and when. Remember that two wrongs never make a right, But that three do. Wherever possible, put people on "HOLD". Be comforted, that in the face of all aridity and disillusionment, And despite the changing fortunes of time, There is always a big future in computer maintenance. You are a fluke of the universe ... You have no right to be here. Whether you can hear it or not, the universe Is laughing behind your back. -- National Lampoon DeVries's Dilemma: If you hit two keys on the typewriter, the one you don't want hits the paper. Did you know ... That no-one ever reads these things? Did you know that clones never use mirrors? -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" Die, v.: To stop sinning suddenly. -- Elbert Hubbard "Die? I should say not, dear fellow. No Barrymore would allow such a conventional thing to happen to him." -- John Barrymore's dying words Different all twisty a of in maze are you, passages little. Dimensions will always be expressed in the least usable term. Velocity, for example, will be expressed in furlongs per fortnight. Diplomacy is the art of saying "nice doggy" until you can find a rock. Disc space -- the final frontier! Disco is to music what Etch-A-Sketch is to art. Distress, n.: A disease incurred by exposure to the prosperity of a friend. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" Do infants have as much fun in infancy as adults do in adultery? Do molecular biologists wear designer genes? Do not believe in miracles -- rely on them. Do not drink coffee in early A.M. It will keep you awake until noon. Do not meddle in the affairs of troff, for it is subtle and quick to anger. Do not read this fortune under penalty of law. Violators will be prosecuted. (Penal Code sec. 2.3.2 (II.a.)) Do not sleep in a eucalyptus tree tonight. Do not try to solve all life's problems at once -- learn to dread each day as it comes. -- Donald Kaul Do something unusual today. Pay a bill. Do what comes naturally now. Seethe and fume and throw a tantrum. Do you realize how many holes there could be if people would just take the time to take the dirt out of them? "Do you think what we're doing is wrong?" "Of course it's wrong! It's illegal!" "I've never done anything illegal before." "I thought you said you were an accountant!" Documentation is like sex: when it is good, it is very, very good; and when it is bad, it is better than nothing. -- Dick Brandon Documentation is the castor oil of programming. Managers know it must be good because the programmers hate it so much. Don't abandon hope: your Tom Mix decoder ring arrives tomorrow. Don't be humble, you're not that great. -- Golda Meir Don't believe everything you hear or anything you say. Don't cook tonight -- starve a rat today! Don't feed the bats tonight. Don't get suckered in by the comments -- they can be terribly misleading. Debug only code. -- Dave Storer Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first. -- Mark Twain Don't go surfing in South Dakota for a while. Don't hate yourself in the morning -- sleep till noon. Don't kiss an elephant on the lips today. Don't knock President Fillmore. He kept us out of Vietnam. Don't let people drive you crazy when you know it's in walking distance. Don't look back, the lemmings are gaining on you. Don't put off for tomorrow what you can do today, because if you enjoy it today you can do it again tomorrow. "Don't say yes until I finish talking." -- Darryl F. Zanuck Don't take life too seriously -- you'll never get out if it alive. Don't tell any big lies today. Small ones can be just as effective. "Don't tell me I'm burning the candle at both ends -- tell me where to get more wax!!" Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia. -- Charles Schultz Don't worry over what other people are thinking about you. They're too busy worrying over what you are thinking about them. Don't you feel more like you do now than you did when you came in? Don: I didn't know you had a cousin Penelope, Bill! Was she pretty? W. C.: Well, her face was so wrinkled it looked like seven miles of bad road. She had so many gold teeth, Don, she use to have to sleep with her head in a safe. She died in Bolivia. Don: Oh Bill, it must be hard to lose a relative. W. C.: It's almost impossible. -- W. C. Fields, from "The Further Adventures of Larson E. Whipsnade and other Tarradiddles" Down with categorical imperative! "Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing." Drew's Law of Highway Biology: The first bug to hit a clean windshield lands directly in front of your eyes. Drive defensively. Buy a tank. Drugs may be the road to nowhere, but at least they're the scenic route! Ducharm's Axiom: If you view your problem closely enough you will recognize yourself as part of the problem. Ducharme's Precept: Opportunity always knocks at the least opportune moment. Duct tape is like the force. It has a light side, and a dark side, and it holds the universe together ... -- Carl Zwanzig Due to a shortage of devoted followers, the production of great leaders has been discontinued. Due to circumstances beyond your control, you are master of your fate and captain of your soul. During a grouse hunt in North Carolina two intrepid sportsmen were blasting away at a clump of trees near a stone wall. Suddenly a red-faced country squire popped his head over the wall and shouted, "Hey, you almost hit my wife." "Did I?" cried the hunter, aghast. "Terribly sorry. Have a shot at mine, over there." During the next two hours, the VAX will be going up and down several times, often with lin~po_~{po ~poz~ppo\~{ o n~po_~{o[po ~y oodsou>#w4k**n~po_~{ol;lkld;f;g;dd;po\~{o Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. And my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it. -- W. Somerset Maughm E Pluribus Unix Earn cash in your spare time -- blackmail your friends Earn cash in your spare time -- blackmail your friends. /Earth is 98% full ... please delete anyone you can. /earth is 98% full ... please delete anyone you can. "Earth is a great, big funhouse without the fun." -- Jeff Berner Easiest Color to Solve on a Rubik's Cube: Black. Simply remove all the little colored stickers on the cube, and each of side of the cube will now be the original color of the plastic underneath -- black. According to the instructions, this means the puzzle is solved. -- Steve Rubenstein Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists. -- John Kenneth Galbraith Economics, n.: Economics is the study of the value and meaning of J. K. Galbraith ... -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" Eggheads unite! You have nothing to lose but your yolks. -- Adlai Stevenson Eggnog is a traditional holiday drink invented by the English. Many people wonder where the word "eggnog" comes from. The first syllable comes from the English word "egg", meaning "egg". I don't know where the "nog" comes from. To make eggnog, you'll need rum, whiskey, wine gin and, if they are in season, eggs... Egotism is the anesthetic given by a kindly nature to relieve the pain of being a damned fool. -- Bellamy Brooks Egotist, n.: A person of low taste, more interested in himself than me. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" Ehrman's Commentary: 1. Things will get worse before they get better. 2. Who said things would get better? Eighty percent of air pollution comes from plants and trees. -- Ronald Reagan, famous movie star Eisenhower was very nice, Nixon was his only vice. -- C. Degen Eleanor Rigby Sits at the keyboard And waits for a line on the screen Lives in a dream Waits for a signal Finding some code That will make the machine do some more. What is it for? All the lonely users, where do they all come from? All the lonely users, why does it take so long? Electrical Engineers do it with less resistance. Electrocution, n.: Burning at the stake with all the modern improvements. Elevators smell different to midgets Emersons' Law of Contrariness: Our chief want in life is somebody who shall make us do what we can. Having found them, we shall then hate them for it. Encyclopedia