Don't Touch Me
An older couple is lying in bed one morning, having just awakened from a good night's sleep. He takes her hand and she responds, "Don't touch
"Why not?" he asks.
She answers back, "Because I'm dead."
The husband says, "What are you talking about? We're both lying here in bed together and talking to one another."
She says, "No, I'm definitely dead."
He insists, "You're not dead. What in the world makes you think you're dead?" "Because I woke up this morning and nothing hurts."
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Movie Computers Ain't My Computer
- Word processors never display a cursor.
- You never have to use the space-bar when typing long sentences.
- All monitors display inch-high letters.
- High-tech computers, such as those used by NASA, the CIA, or some such governmental institution, will have easy-to-understand graphical interfaces.
- Those that don't will have incredibly powerful text-based command shells that can correctly understand and execute commands typed in plain English.
- Corollary: You can gain access to any information you want by simply typing "ACCESS ALL OF THE SECRET FILES" on any keyboard.
- Likewise, you can infect a computer with a destructive virus by simply typing "UPLOAD VIRUS." (See "Fortress")
- All computers are connected. You can access the information on the villain's desktop computer, even if it's turned off.
- Powerful computers beep whenever you press a key or whenever the screen changes. Some computers also slow down the output on the screen so that it doesn't go faster than you can read. The *really* advanced ones also emulate the sound of a dot-matrix printer.
- All computer panels have thousands of volts and flash pots just underneath the surface. Malfunctions are indicated by a bright flash, a puff of smoke, a shower of sparks, and an explosion that forces you backward.
- People typing away on a computer will turn it off without saving the data.
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Work Laws
- There will always be beer cans rolling on the floor of your car when the boss asks for a ride home from the office.
- Mother said there would be days like this, but she never said there would be so many.
- Keep your boss's boss off your boss's back. This is what I'm doing wrong.
- Everything can be filed under "miscellaneous."
- Never delay the ending of a meeting or the beginning of a cocktail hour.
- To err is human, to forgive is not company policy.
- Anyone can do any amount of work provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing.
- Important letters that contain no errors will develop errors in the mail.
- The last person that quit or was fired will be the one held responsible for everything that goes wrong - until the next person quits or is fired.
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Gonna Be a Bear
In this life, I'm a woman. In my next life, I'd like to come back as a bear. When you're a bear, you get to hibernate. You do nothing but sleep for six months. I could deal with that.
Before you hibernate, you're supposed to eat yourself stupid. I could deal with that too.
When you're a girl bear, you birth your children (who are the size of walnuts) while you're sleeping and wake to partially grown, cute, cuddly cubs. I could definately deal with that.
If you're mama bear, everyone knows you mean business. You swat anyone who bothers your cubs. If your cubs get out of line, you swat them too. I could deal with that.
If you're a bear, your mate EXPECTS you to wake up growling. He EXPECTS that you will have hairy legs and excess body fat.
Yup, gonna be a bear!
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Optimist and Pessimist
Two friends, one an Optimist and the other a Pessimist could never
quite agree on any topic of discussion. One day the Optimist decided
he had found a good way to pull his Pessimistic friend out of his
continual Pessimistic way of thinking. The Optimist owned a hunting
dog that could walk on water. His plan? Take the Pessimist and the
dog out duck hunting in a boat.
They got out into the middle of the lake, and the Optimist shot down
a duck. The dog immediately walked out across the water, retrieved
the duck, and walked back to the boat.
The Optimist looked at his Pessimistic friend and said, "What do you
think about that?"
The Pessimist replied, "That dog can't swim, can he?"
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Cleaning Poem
I asked the Lord to tell me
Why my house is such a mess.
He asked if I'd been 'computering',
And I had to answer 'yes.'
He told me to get off my fanny
And tidy up the house.
And so I started cleaning up...
The smudges off my mouse.
I wiped and shined the topside.
That really did the trick...
I was just admiring my work...
I didn't mean to 'click.'
But click, I did, and oops I found<>A real absorbing site
That I got SO way into...
I was into it all night.<
Nothing's changed except my mouse
It's very, very shiny.
I guess my house will stay a mess...
While I sit here on my hiney.
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Second Wife
When our second child was on the way, my wife and I attended a pre-birth class aimed at couples who had already had at least one child. The instructor raised the issue of breaking the news to the older child. It went like this:
"Some parents," she said, "tell the older child, 'We love you so much we decided to bring another child into this family.' But think about that. Ladies, what if your husband came home one day and said, 'Honey, I love you so much I decided to bring home another wife.'"
One of the women spoke up immediately. "Does she cook?"
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Wacky Americans
- We yell for the Government to balance the budget, then take the last dime we have to make the down payment on a car.
- We whip the enemy in battle, then give them the shirt off our backs.
- We yell for speed laws that will stop fast driving, then won't buy a car if it can't go over 100 miles an hour.
- Americans get scared to death if we vote a billion dollars for education, then are unconcerned when we find out we are spending three billion dollars a year for cigarettes.
- We know the line-up of every baseball team in the American and National Leagues but don't know half the words in the "Star Spangled Banner".
- We'll spend half a day looking for vitamin pills to make us live longer, then drive 90 miles an hour on slick pavement to make up for lost time.
- We tie up our dog while letting our sixteen year old son run wild.
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Computer Weirdness in Movies
- A hacker can get into the most sensitive computer in the world before intermission and guess the secret password in two tries.
- Any PERMISSION DENIED has an OVERRIDE function. (See "Demolition Man" and countless others)
- Complex calculations and loading of huge amounts of data will be accomplished in under three seconds. Movie modems transmit data at a speed of two gigabytes per second.
- When the power plant/missile site/whatever overheats, all the control panels will explode, as will the entire building.
- If you display a file on the screen and someone deletes the file, it also disappears from the screen. (e.g., "Clear and Present Danger")
- If a disk has got encrypted files, you are automatically asked for a password when you try to access it.
- No matter what kind of computer disk it is, it'll be readable by any system you put it into. All application software is usable by all computer platforms.
- The more high-tech the equipment, the more buttons it has ("Aliens"). However, everyone must have been highly trained, because the buttons aren't labeled.
- Most computers, no matter how small, have reality-defying three-dimensional, real-time, photo-realistic animated graphics capability.
- Laptops, for some strange reason, always seem to have amazing real-time video phone capabilities and the performance of a CRAY Y-MP.
- Whenever a character looks at a VDU, the image is so bright that it projects itself onto his/her face. (See "Alien," "2001")