-- Dan Fylstra Insanity is hereditary. You get it from your kids. Insanity is the final defense ... It's hard to get a refund when the salesman is sniffing your crotch and baying at the moon. Interpreter, n.: One who enables two persons of different languages to understand each other by repeating to each what it would have been to the interpreter's advantage for the other to have said. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" INVENTORY Four be the things I am wiser to know: Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe. Four be the things I'd been better without: Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt. Three be the things I shall never attain: Envy, content, and sufficient champagne. Three be the things I shall have till I die: Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye. Iron Law of Distribution: Them that has, gets. Is it possible that software is not like anything else, that it is meant to be discarded: that the whole point is to always see it as a soap bubble? Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged, from the beginning of the world, that such as are in the institution wish to get out, and such as are out wish to get in? -- Ralph Emerson Is your job running? You'd better go catch it! Isn't it strange that the same people that laugh at gypsy fortune tellers take economists seriously? Issawi's Laws of Progress: The Course of Progress: Most things get steadily worse. The Path of Progress: A shortcut is the longest distance between two points. It has been observed that one's nose is never so happy as when it is thrust into the affairs of another, from which some physiologists have drawn the inference that the nose is devoid of the sense of smell. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" It has just been discovered that research causes cancer in rats. It is against the grain of modern education to teach children to program. What fun is there in making plans, acquiring discipline in organizing thoughts, devoting attention to detail, and learning to be self-critical? -- Alan Perlis It is always preferable to visit home with a friend. Your parents will not be pleased with this plan, because they want you all to themselves and because in the presence of your friend, they will have to act like mature human beings ... -- Playboy, January 1983 It is amusing that a virtue is made of the vice of chastity; and it's a pretty odd sort of chastity at that, which leads men straight into the sin of Onan, and girls to the waning of their color. -- Voltaire It is better to kiss an avocado than to get in a fight with an aardvark It is by the fortune of God that, in this country, we have three benefits: freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and the wisdom never to use either. -- Mark Twain It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both incisive and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper. -- R. Serling "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle if it is lightly greased." -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit" It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice versa. It is easier to get forgiveness than permission. It is easier to write an incorrect program than understand a correct one. It is generally agreed that "Hello" is an appropriate greeting because if you entered a room and said "Goodbye," it could confuse a lot of people. -- Dolph Sharp, "I'm O.K., You're Not So Hot" It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious. It is impossible to travel faster than light, and certainly not desirable, as one's hat keeps blowing off. -- Woody Allen It is much easier to suggest solutions when you know nothing about the problem. It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail. -- Gore Vidal It is not true that life is one damn thing after another -- it's one damn thing over and over. -- Edna St. Vincent Millay It is now 10 p.m. Do you know where Henry Kissinger is? -- Elizabeth Carpenter It is now pitch dark. If you proceed, you will likely fall into a pit. It is one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that virginity could be a virtue. -- Voltaire It is said that the lonely eagle flies to the mountain peaks while the lowly ant crawls the ground, but cannot the soul of the ant soar as high as the eagle? It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. -- Henry David Thoreau, "Where I Live" It is the business of little minds to shrink. -- Carl Sandburg It is the business of the future to be dangerous. -- Hawkwind It looks like blind screaming hedonism won out. It may be that your whole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others. It seems like the less a statesman amounts to, the more he loves the flag. "It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't give up because by that time I was too famous." It was a book to kill time for those who liked it better dead. "It was pleasant to me to get a letter from you the other day. Perhaps I should have found it pleasanter if I had been able to decipher it. I don't think that I mastered anything beyond the date (which I knew) and the signature (which I guessed at). There's a singular and a perpetual charm in a letter of yours; it never grows old, it never loses its novelty .... Other letters are read and thrown away and forgotten, but yours are kept forever -- unread. One of them will last a reasonable man a lifetime." -- Thomas Aldrich It was the next morning that the armies of Twodor marched east laden with long lances, sharp swords, and death-dealing hangovers. The thousands were led by Arrowroot, who sat limply in his sidesaddle, nursing a whopper. Goodgulf, Gimlet, and the rest rode by him, praying for their fate to be quick, painless, and if possible, someone else's. Many an hour the armies forged ahead, the war-merinos bleating under their heavy burdens and the soldiers bleating under their melting icepacks. -- The Harvard Lampoon, "Bored of the Rings" It will be advantageous to cross the great stream ... the Dragon is on the wing in the Sky ... the Great Man rouses himself to his Work. It's a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word. -- Andrew Jackson "It's bad luck to be superstitious." -- Andrew W. Mathis "It's easier said than done." ... and if you don't believe it, try proving that it's easier done than said, and you'll see that "it's easier said that `it's easier done than said' than it is done", which really proves that "it's easier said than done". It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them. It's easier to get forgiveness for being wrong than forgiveness for being right. "It's Fabulous! We haven't seen anything like it in the last half an hour!" -- Macy's It's is not, it isn't ain't, and it's it's, not its, if you mean it is. If you don't, it's its. Then too, it's hers. It isn't her's. It isn't our's either. It's ours, and likewise yours and theirs. -- Oxford University Press, Edpress News It's lucky you're going so slowly, because you're going in the wrong direction. It's not an optical illusion, it just looks like one. -- Phil White "It's not Camelot, but it's not Cleveland, either." -- Kevin White, mayor of Boston It's not enough to be Hungarian; you must have talent too. -- Alexander Korda It's not that I'm afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it happens. -- Woody Allen It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles. JACK AND THE BEANSTACK by Mark Isaak Long ago, in a finite state far away, there lived a JOVIAL character named Jack. Jack and his relations were poor. Often their hash table was bare. One day Jack's parent said to him, "Our matrices are sparse. You must go to the market to exchange our RAM for some BASICs." She compiled a linked list of items to retrieve and passed it to him. So Jack set out. But as he was walking along a Hamilton path, he met the traveling salesman. "Whither dost thy flow chart take thou?" prompted the salesman in high-level language. "I'm going to the market to exchange this RAM for some chips and Apples," commented Jack. "I have a much better algorithm. You needn't join a queue there; I will swap your RAM for these magic kernels now." Jack made the trade, then backtracked to his house. But when he told his busy-waiting parent of the deal, she became so angry she started thrashing. "Don't you even have any artificial intelligence? All these kernels together hardly make up one byte," and she popped them out the window ... Jacquin's Postulate on Democratic Government: No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session. Jenkinson's Law: It won't work. Jesus Saves, Moses Invests, But only Buddha pays Dividends. Joe's sister puts spaghetti in her shoes! Johnson's First Law: When any mechanical contrivance fails, it will do so at the most inconvenient possible time. Jone's Law: The man who smiles when things go wrong has thought of someone to blame it on. Jone's Motto: Friends come and go, but enemies accumulate. Jones's First Law: Anyone who makes a significant contribution to any field of endeavor, and stays in that field long enough, becomes an obstruction to its progress -- in direct proportion to the importance of their original contribution. Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they AREN'T after you. Just because your doctor has a name for your condition doesn't mean he knows what it is. "Just once, I wish we would encounter an alien menace that wasn't immune to bullets" -- The Brigader, "Dr. Who" Just remember: when you go to court, you are trusting your fate to twelve people that weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty! Justice is incidental to law and order. -- J. Edgar Hoover Justice is incidental to law and order. -- J. Edgar Hoover Justice, n.: A decision in your favor. Katz' Law: Man and nations will act rationally when all other possibilities have been exhausted. Keep America beautiful. Swallow your beer cans. Keep emotionally active. Cater to your favorite neurosis. Keep grandma off the streets -- legalize bingo. Keep in mind always the two constant Laws of Frisbee: 1. The most powerful force in the world is that of a disc straining to land under a car, just out of reach (this force is technically termed "car suck"). 2. Never precede any maneuver by a comment more predictive than "Watch this!" Keep you Eye on the Ball, Your Shoulder to the Wheel, Your Nose to the Grindstone, Your Feet on the Ground, Your Head on your Shoulders. Now ... try to get something DONE! Ken Thompson has an automobile which he helped design. Unlike most automobiles, it has neither speedometer, nor gas gage, nor any of the numerous idiot lights which plague the modern driver. Rather, if the driver makes any mistake, a giant "?" lights up in the center of the dashboard. "The experienced driver", he says, "will usually know what's wrong." Kerr's Three Rules for a Successful College: Have plenty of football for the alumni, sex for the students, and parking for the faculty. Kin, n.: An affliction of the blood Kinkler's First Law: Responsibility always exceeds authority. Kinkler's Second Law: All the easy problems have been solved. "Kirk to Enterprise -- beam down yeoman Rand and a six-pack." Kiss me twice. I'm schizophrenic. Kiss your keyboard goodbye! Klein bottle for rent -- inquire within. Klein bottle for sale ... inquire within. Kleptomaniac, n.: A rich thief. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" Know thyself. If you need help, call the C.I.A. Know what I hate most? Rhetorical questions. -- Henry N. Camp Krogt, n. (chemical symbol: Kr): The metallic silver coating found on fast-food game cards. -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" Labor, n.: One of the processes by which A acquires property for B. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" Lackland's Laws: 1. Never be first. 2. Never be last. 3. Never volunteer for anything Lactomangulation, n.: Manhandling the "open here" spout on a milk carton so badly that one has to resort to using the "illegal" side. -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" Laetrile is the pits Langsam's Laws: 1) Everything depends. 2) Nothing is always. 3) Everything is sometimes. Larkinson's Law: All laws are basically false. Lassie looked brilliant, in part because the farm family she lived with was made up of idiots. Remember? One of them was always getting pinned under the tractor, and Lassie was always rushing back to the farmhouse to alert the other ones. She'd whimper and tug at their sleeves, and they'd always waste precious minutes saying things: "Do you think something's wrong? Do you think she wants us to follow her? What is it, girl?", etc., as if this had never happened before, instead of every week. What with all the time these people spent pinned under the tractor, I don't see how they managed to grow any crops whatsoever. They probably got by on federal crop supports, which Lassie filed the applications for. -- Dave Barry Laugh at your problems; everybody else does. "Laughter is the closest distance between two people." -- Victor Borge Law of Communications: The inevitable result of improved and enlarged communications between different levels in a hierarchy is a vastly increased area of misunderstanding. Law of Probable Dispersal: Whatever it is that hits the fan will not be evenly distributed. Law of Selective Gravity: An object will fall so as to do the most damage. Jenning's Corollary: The chance of the bread falling with the buttered side down is directly proportional to the cost of the carpet. Law of the Perversity of Nature: You cannot successfully determine beforehand which side of the bread to butter. Laws of Serendipity: 1. In order to discover anything, you must be looking for something. 2. If you wish to make an improved product, you must already be engaged in making an inferior one. Lazlo's Chinese Relativity Axiom: No matter how great your triumphs or how tragic your defeats -- approximately one billion Chinese couldn't care less. Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse. Leibowitz's Rule: When hammering a nail, you will never hit your finger if you hold the hammer with both hands. LEO (July 23 - Aug 22) Your determination and sense of humor will come to the fore. Your ability to laugh at adversity will be a blessing because you've got a day coming you wouldn't believe. As a matter of fact, if you can laugh at what happens to you today, you've got a sick sense of humor. LEO (July 23 - Aug 22) You consider yourself a born leader. Others think you are pushy. Most Leo people are bullies. You are vain and dislike honest criticism. Your arrogance is disgusting. Leo people are thieves. Let He who taketh the Plunge Remember to return it by Tuesday. Let us live!!! Let us love!!! Let us share the deepest secrets of our souls!!! You first. Let's talk about how to fill out your 1984 tax return. Here's an often overlooked accounting technique that can save you thousands of dollars: For several days before you put it in the mail, carry your tax return around under your armpit. No IRS agent is going to want to spend hours poring over a sweat-stained document. So even if you owe money, you can put in for an enormous refund and the agent will probably give it to you, just to avoid an audit. What does he care? It's not his money. -- Dave Barry, "Sweating Out Taxes" LETTERS TO THE EDITOR (The Times of London) Dear Sir, I am firmly opposed to the spread of microchips either to the home or to the office. We have more than enough of them foisted upon us in public places. They are a disgusting Americanism, and can only result in the farmers being forced to grow smaller potatoes, which in turn will cause massive unemployment in the already severely depressed agricultural industry. Yours faithfully, Capt. Quinton D'Arcy, J. P. Sevenoaks Lewis's Law of Travel: The first piece of luggage out of the chute doesn't belong to anyone, ever. Liar, n.: A lawyer with a roving commission. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" LIBRA (Sep. 23 to Oct. 22) Your desire for justice and truth will be overshadowed by your desire for filthy lucre and a decent meal. Be gracious and polite. Someone is watching you, so stop staring like that. LIBRA (Sept 23 - Oct 22) You are the artistic type and have a difficult time with reality. If you are a man, you are more than likely gay. Chances for employment and monetary gains are excellent. Most Libra women are prostitutes. All Libra people die of Venereal disease. Lie, n.: A very poor substitute for the truth, but the only one discovered to date. Lieberman's Law: Everybody lies, but it doesn't matter since nobody listens. Life is a whim of several billion cells to be you for a while. Life is a yo-yo, and mankind ties knots in the string. Life is like an onion: you peel off layer after layer, then you find there is nothing in it. "Life may have no meaning -- or even worse, it may have a meaning of which I disapprove." Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops. -- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Like the ski resort of girls looking for husbands and husbands looking for girls, the situation is not as symmetrical as it might seem. -- Alan McKay Limericks are art forms complex, Their topics run chiefly to sex. They usually have virgins, And masculine urgin's, And other erotic effects. Line Printer paper is strongest at the perforations. Linus: I guess it's wrong always to be worrying about tomorrow. Maybe we should think only about today. Charlie Brown: No, that's giving up. I'm still hoping that yesterday will get better. Living on Earth may be expensive, but it includes an annual free trip around the Sun. Living your life is a task so difficult, it has never been attempted before. Lizzie Borden took an axe, And plunged it deep into the VAX; Don't you envy people who Do all the things ___YOU want to do? Lockwood's Long Shot: The chances of getting eaten up by a lion on Main Street aren't one in a million, but once would be enough. Look out! Behind you! Losing your drivers' license is just God's way of saying "BOOGA, BOOGA!" Love at first sight is one of the greatest labor-saving devices the world has ever seen. Love is a word that is constantly heard, Hate is a word that is not. Love, I am told, is more precious than gold. Love, I have read, is hot. But hate is the verb that to me is superb, And Love but a drug on the mart. Any kiddie in school can love like a fool, But Hating, my boy, is an Art. -- Ogden Nash Love is sentimental measles. Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. -- H. L. Mencken Love your enemies: they'll go crazy trying to figure out what you're up to. Love's Drug My love is like an iron wand That conks me on the head, My love is like the valium That I take before me bed, My love is like the pint of scotch That I drink when i be dry; And I shall love thee still my dear, Until my wife is wise. Lowery's Law: If it jams -- force it. If it breaks, it needed replacing anyway. LSD melts in your mind, not in your hand. Lubarsky's Law of Cybernetic Entomology: There's always one more bug. Lunatic Asylum, n.: The place where optimism most flourishes. Lysistrata had a good idea. "MacDonald has the gift on compressing the largest amount of words into the smallest amount of thoughts." -- Winston Churchill Mad, adj.: Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence ... -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" Madam, there's no such thing as a tough child -- if you parboil them first for seven hours, they always come out tender. -- W. C. Fields Magnet, n.: Something acted upon by magnetism Magnetism, n.: Something acting upon a magnet. The two definition immediately foregoing are condensed from the works of one thousand eminent scientists, who have illuminated the subject with a great white light, to the inexpressible advancement of human knowledge. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" Magnocartic, adj.: Any automobile that, when left unattended, attracts shopping carts. -- Sniglets, "Rich Hall & Friends" Magpie, n.: A bird whose theivish disposition suggested to someone that it might be taught to talk. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" Maier's Law: If the facts do not conform to the theory, they must be disposed of. Corollaries: 1. The bigger the theory, the better. 2. The experiment may be considered a success if no more than 50% of the observed measurements must be discarded to obtain a correspondence with the theory. Main's Law: For every action there is an equal and opposite government program. Maintainer's Motto: If we can't fix it, it ain't broke. Major Premise: Sixty men can do a piece of work sixty times as quickly as one man. Minor Premise: One man can dig a posthole in sixty seconds. Conclusion: Sixty men can dig a posthole in one second. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" Majority, n.: That quality that distinguishes a crime from a law. Making files is easy under the UNIX operating system. Therefore, users tend to create numerous files using large amounts of file space. It has been said that the only standard thing about all UNIX systems is the message-of-the-day telling users to clean up their files. -- System V.2 administrator's guide Malek's Law: Any simple idea will be worded in the most complicated way. "Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain." -- Lily Tomlin Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason. -- Oscar Wilde Man is the best computer we can put aboard a spacecraft ... and the only one that can be mass produced with unskilled labor. -- Wernher von Braun Man is the only animal that blushes -- or needs to. -- Mark Twain Man usually avoids attributing cleverness to somebody else -- unless it is an enemy. -- A. Einstein Man, n.: An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be. His chief occupation is extermination of other animals and his own species, which, however, multiplies with such insistent rapidity as to infest the whole habitable earth and Canada. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" Mankind's yearning to engage in sports is older than recorded history, dating back to the time millions of years ago, when the first primitive man picked up a crude club and a round rock, tossed the rock into the air, and whomped the club into the sloping forehead of the first primitive umpire. What inner force drove this first athlete? Your guess is as good as mine. Better, probably, because you haven't had four beers. -- Dave Barry, "Sports is a Drag" Manual, n.: A unit of documentation. There are always three or more on a given item. One is on the shelf; someone has the others. The information you need in in the others. -- Ray Simard Many years ago in a period commonly know as Next Friday Afternoon, there lived a King who was very Gloomy on Tuesday mornings because he was so Sad thinking about how Unhappy he had been on Monday and how completely Mournful he would be on Wednesday ... -- Walt Kelly Mark's Dental-Chair Discovery: Dentists are incapable of asking questions that require a simple yes or no answer. Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly. -- Voltaire "Matrimony isn't a word, it's a sentence." Matter cannot be created or destroyed, nor can it be returned without a receipt. Maturity is only a short break in adolescence. -- Jules Feiffer May a Misguided Platypus lay its Eggs in your Jockey Shorts May Euell Gibbons eat your only copy of the manual! May the Fleas of a Thousand Camels infest one of your Erogenous Zones. May your Tongue stick to the Roof of your Mouth with the Force of a Thousand Caramels. Maybe Computer Science should be in the College of Theology. -- R. S. Barton Maybe you can't buy happiness, but these days you can certainly charge it. Mayor Vincent J. `Buddy' Cianci on the ACLU's suit to have a city nativity scene removed: "They're just jealous because they don't have three wise men and a virgin in the whole organization." McGowan's Madison Avenue Axiom: If an item is advertised as "under $50", you can bet it's not $19.95. Meader's Law: Whatever happens to you, it will previously have happened to everyone you know, only more so. Measure with a micrometer. Mark with chalk. Cut with an axe. Meeting, n.: An assembly of people coming together to decide what person or department not represented in the room must solve a problem. Men were real men, women were real women, and small, furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were REAL small, furry creatures from Alpha Centauri. Spirits were brave, men boldly split infinitives that no man had split before. Thus was the Empire forged. -- "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", Douglas Adams Mencken and Nathan's Fifteenth Law of The Average American: The worst actress in the company is always the manager's wife. Mencken and Nathan's Ninth Law of The Average American: The quality of a champagne is judged by the amount of noise the cork makes when it is popped. Mencken and Nathan's Second Law of The Average American: All the postmasters in small towns read all the postcards. Mencken and Nathan's Sixteenth Law of The Average American: Milking a cow is an operation demanding a special talent that is possessed only by yokels, and no person born in a large city can never hope to acquire it. Menu, n.: A list of dishes which the restaurant has just run out of. Meskimen's Law: There's never time to do it right, but there's always time to do it over. Message will arrive in the mail. Destroy, before the FBI sees it. Mickey Mouse wears a Spiro Agnew watch. Micro Credo: Never trust a computer bigger than you can lift. "Might as well be frank, monsieur. It would take a miracle to get you out of Casablanca and the Germans have outlawed miracles." Miksch's Law: If a string has one end, then it has another end. Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms. -- Groucho Marx Military justice is to justice what military music is to music. -- Groucho Marx Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. -- Susan Ertz Millions of sensible people are too high-minded to concede that politics is almost always the choice of the lesser evil. "Tweedledum and Tweedledee," they say, "I will not vote." Having abstained, they are presented with a President who appoints the people who are going to rummage around in their lives for the next four years. Consider all the people who sat home in a stew in 1968 rather than vote for Hubert Humphrey. They showed Humphrey. Those people who taught Hubert Humphrey a lesson will still be enjoying the Nixon Supreme Court when Tricia and Julie begin to find silver threads among the gold and the black. -- Russel Baker, "Ford without Flummery" Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail. Minnie Mouse is a slow maze learner. Misery loves company, but company does not reciprocate. Misfortune, n.: The kind of fortune that never misses. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" Miss, n.: A title with which we brand unmarried women to indicate that they are in the market. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" Mistakes are often the stepping stones to utter failure. Mitchell's Law of Committees: Any simple problem can be made insoluble if enough meetings are held to discuss it. MOCK APPLE PIE (No Apples Needed) Pastry to two crust 9-inch pie 36 RITZ Crackers 2 cups water 2 cups sugar 2 teaspoons cream of tartar 2 tablespoons lemon juice Grated rind of one lemon Butter or margarine Cinnamon Roll out bottom crust of pastry and fit into 9-inch pie plate. Break RITZ Crackers coarsely into pastry-lined plate. Combine water, sugar and cream of tartar in saucepan, boil gently for 15 minutes. Add lemon juice and rind. Cool. Pour this syrup over Crackers, dot generously with butter or margarine and sprinkle with cinnamon. Cover with top crust. Trim and flute edges together. Cut slits in top crust to let steam escape. Bake in a hot oven (425 F) 30 to 35 minutes, until crust is crisp and golden. Serve warm. Cut into 6 to 8 slices. -- Found lurking on a Ritz Crackers box Modern man is the missing link between apes and human beings. Molecule, n.: The ultimate, indivisible unit of matter. It is distinguished from the corpuscle, also the ultimate, indivisible unit of matter, by a closer resemblance to the atom, also the ultimate, indivisible unit of matter ... The ion differs from the molecule, the corpuscle and the atom in that it is an ion ... -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" Mollison's Bureaucracy Hypothesis: If an idea can survive a bureaucratic review and be implemented it wasn't worth doing. Monday is an awful way to spend one seventh of your life. Monday, n.: In Christian countries, the day after the baseball game. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" Money is the root of all evil, and man needs roots Mophobia, n.: Fear of being verbally abused by a Mississippian. MORE SPORTS RESULTS: The Beverly Hills Freudians tied the Chicago Rogerians 0-0 last Saturday night. The match started with a long period of silence while the Freudians waited for the Rogerians to free associate and the Rogerians waited for the Freudians to say something they could paraphrase. The stalemate was broken when the Freudians' best player took the offensive and interpreted the Rogerians' silence as reflecting their anal-retentive personalities. At this the Rogerians' star player said "I hear you saying you think we're full of ka-ka." This started a fight and the match was called by officials. More than any time in history, mankind now faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to total extinction. Let us pray that we have the wisdom to choose correctly. -- Woody Allen Mosher's Law of Software Engineering: Don't worry if it doesn't work right. If everything did, you'd be out of a job. Most people wouldn't know music if it came up and bit them on the ass. -- Frank Zappa Mother told me to be good, but she's been wrong before. Mr. Cole's Axiom: The sum of the intelligence on the planet is a constant; the population is growing. Murphy's Discovery: Do you know Presidents talk to the country the way men talk to women? They say, "Trust me, go all the way with me, and everything will be all right." And what happens? Nine months later, you're in trouble! Murphy's Law is recursive. Washing your car to make it rain doesn't work. Murphy's Law of Research: Enough research will tend to support your theory. Murray and Esther, a middle-aged Jewish couple, are touring Chile. Murray just got a new camera and is constantly snapping pictures. One day, without knowing it, he photographs a top-secret military installation. In an instant, armed troops surround Murray and Esther and hustle them off to prison. They can't prove who they are because they've left their passports in their hotel room. For three weeks they're tortured day and night to get them to name their contacts in the liberation movement.. Finally they're hauled in front of a military court, charged with espionage, and sentenced to death. The next morning they're lined up in front of the wall where they'll be shot. The sergeant in charge of the firing squad asks them if they have any lasts requests. Esther wants to know if she can call her daughter in Chicago. The sergeant says he's sorry, that's not possible, and turns to Murray. "This is crazy!" Murray shouts. "We're not spies!" And he spits in the sergeants face. "Murray!" Esther cries. "Please! Don't make trouble." -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish" Mustgo, n.: Any item of food that has been sitting in the refrigerator so long it has become a science project. -- Sniglets, "Rich Hall & Friends" My God, I'm depressed! Here I am, a computer with a mind a thousand times as powerful as yours, doing nothing but cranking out fortunes and sending mail about softball games. And I've got this pain right through my ALU. I've asked for it to be replaced, but nobody ever listens. I think it would be better for us both if you were to just log out again. My love runs by like a day in June, And he makes no friends of sorrows. He'll tread his galloping rigadoon In the pathway or the morrows. He'll live his days where the sunbeams start Nor could storm or wind uproot him. My own dear love, he is all my heart -- And I wish somebody'd shoot him. -- Dorothy Parker My love, he's mad, and my love, he's fleet, And a wild young wood-thing bore him! The ways are fair to his roaming feet, And the skies are sunlit for him. As sharply sweet to my heart he seems As the fragrance of acacia. My own dear love, he is all my dreams -- And I wish he were in Asia. -- Dorothy Parker My opinions may have changed, but not the fact that I am right. My own dear love, he is strong and bold And he cares not what comes after. His words ring sweet as a chime of gold, And his eyes are lit with laughter. He is jubilant as a flag unfurled -- Oh, a girl, she'd not forget him. My own dear love, he is all my world -- And I wish I'd never met him. -- Dorothy Parker "My weight is perfect for my height -- which varies" Mythology, n.: The body of a primitive people's beliefs concerning its origin, early history, heroes, deities and so forth, as distinguished from the true accounts which it invents later. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" Naeser's Law: You can make it foolproof, but you can't make it damnfoolproof. NAPOLEON: What shall we do with this soldier, Guiseppe? Everything he says is wrong. GUISEPPE: Make him a general, Excellency, and then everything he says will be right. -- G. B. Shaw, "The Man of Destiny" Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night, God said, "Let Newton be," and all was light. It did not last; the devil howling "Ho! Let Einstein be!" restored the status quo. Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power. -- Abraham Lincoln Necessity is a mother. Never be led astray onto the path of virtue. Never call a man a fool. Borrow from him. Never call a man a fool; borrow from him. Never count your chickens before they rip your lips off Never drink coke in a moving elevator. The elevator's motion coupled with the chemicals in coke produce hallucinations. People tend to change into lizards and attack without warning, and large bats usually fly in the window. Additionally, you begin to believe that elevators have windows. Never eat more than you can lift. -- Miss Piggy Never hit a man with glasses. Hit him with a baseball bat. Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right. -- Salvor Hardin, "Foundation" Never make anything simple and efficient when a way can be found to make it complex and wonderful. Never offend people with style when you can offend them with substance. -- Sam Brown, "The Washington Post", January 26, 1977 Never put off till tomorrow what you can avoid all together. Never try to outstubborn a cat. -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love" Never worry about theory as long as the machinery does what it's supposed to do. -- R. A. Heinlein New crypt. See /usr/news/crypt. New members are urgently needed in the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Yourself. Apply within. New systems generate new problems. New Year's Eve is the time of year when a man most feels his age, and his wife most often reminds him to act it. -- Webster's Unafraid Dictionary New York is real. The rest is done with mirrors. New York's got the ways and means; Just won't let you be. -- The Grateful Dead Newlan's Truism: An "acceptable" level of unemployment means that the government economist to whom it is acceptable still has a job. NEWS FLASH!! Today the East German pole-vault champion became the West German pole-vault champion. *** NEWSFLASH *** Russian tanks steamrolling through New Jersey!!!! Details at eleven! Newton's Fourth Law: Every action has an equal and opposite satisfaction. Newton's Little-Known Seventh Law: A bird in the hand is safer than one overhead. Next Friday will not be your lucky day. As a matter of fact, you don't have a lucky day this year. Next to being shot at and missed, nothing is really quite as satisfying as an income tax refund. -- F. J. Raymond Nihilism should commence with oneself. Niklaus Wirth has lamented that, whereas Europeans pronounce his name correctly (Ni-klows Virt), Americans invariably mangle it into (Nick-les Worth). Which is to say that Europeans call him by name, but Americans call him by value. Nine megs for the secretaries fair, Seven megs for the hack