Show up naked.
Bring beer
Travel Agents
The following are actual stories told by travel agents (and you wonder why
US citizens generally score less than the rest of the world on geography)...
A client called inquiring about a package to Hawaii. After going over all
the cost info, she asked, "would it be cheaper to fly to California and then
take the train to Hawaii?"
A nice lady just called. She needed to know how it was possible that her
flight from Detroit left at 8:20am and got into Chicago at 8:33am. I tried
to explain that Michigan was an hour ahead of Illinois, but she could not
understand the concept of time zones. Finally I told her the plane went
very fast, and she bought that!
A woman called and asked, "Do airlines put your physical description on your
bag so they know who's luggage belongs to who?" I said, "No, why do you
ask?" She replied, "Well, when I checked in with the airline, they put a
tag on my luggage that said FAT, and I'm overweight, is there any
connection?" After putting her on hold for a minute while I "looked into
it" ( I was actually laughing) I came back and explained the city code for
Fresno is FAT, and that the airline was just putting a destination tag on
her luggage.
I just got off the phone with a man who asked, "How do I know which plane to
get on?" I asked him what exactly he meant, to which he replied, "I was told
my flight number is 823, but none of these darn planes have numbers on
them."
A woman called and said, " I need to fly to Pepsi-cola on one of those
computer planes." I asked if she meant to fly to Pensacola on a commuter
plane. She said, "Yea, whatever."
A business man called and had a question about the documents he needed in
order to fly to China. After a lengthy discussion about passports, I
reminded him he needed a visa. "Oh no I don't, I've been to China many
times and never had to have one of those." I double checked, and sure
enough, his stay required a visa. When I told him this he said, "Look, I've
been to China 4 times and every time they have accepted my American
Express."
A woman called to make reservations, "I want to go from Chicago to
Hippopotamus, New York" The agent was at a loss for words. Finally, the
agent asked "Are you sure that's the name of the town?"
"Yes, what flights do you have?" replied the customer. After some
searching, the agent came back with, "I'm sorry, ma'am, I've looked up every
airport code in the country and can't find a Hippopotamus anywhere."
The customer retorted, "Oh don't be silly. Everyone knows where it is.
Check your map!"
The agent scoured a map of the state of New York and finally offered, "You
don't mean Buffalo, do you?"
"That's it! I knew it was a big animal!"
More stupid criminals
Seattle..... When a man attempted to siphon gasoline from a
motor home parked on a Seattle street, he got much more than
he bargained for. Police arrived at the scene to find an ill
man curled up next to a motor home near spilled sewage. A police
spokesman said that the man admitted to trying to steal gasoline
and plugged his hose into the motor home's sewage tank by mistake.
The owner of the vehicle declined to press charges, saying it was
the best laugh he'd ever had.
A woman was reporting her car as stolen, and mentioned that
there was a car phone in it. The policeman taking the report
called the phone and told the guy that answered that he had read
the ad in the newspaper and wanted to buy the car. They arranged
to meet, and the thief was arrested.
David Posman, 33, was arrested recently in Providence, R.I.,
after allegedly knocking out an armored car driver and stealing
the closest four bags of money. It turned out they contained
$800 in PENNIES, weighed 30 pounds each, and slowed him to a
stagger during his getaway so that police officers easily jumped
him from behind.
Louisiana: A man walked into a Circle-K, put a $20 bill on the
counter and asked for change. When the clerk opened the cash
drawer, the man pulled a gun and asked for all the cash in the
register, which the clerk promptly provided. The man took the
cash from the clerk and fled, leaving the $20 bill on the counter.
The total amount of cash he got from the drawer? Fifteen dollars.
[If someone points a gun at you and gives you money, was a crime
committed?]
Arkansas: Seems this guy wanted some beer pretty badly. He
decided that he'd just throw a cinder block through a liquor store
window, grab some booze, and run. So he lifted the cinder block
and heaved it over his head at the window. The cinder block bounced
back and hit the would-be thief on the head, knocking him unconscious.
Seems the liquor store window was made of Plexi-Glass. The whole
event was caught on videotape.
Ann Arbor: The Ann Arbor News crime column reported that a man
walked into a Burger King in Ypsilanti, Michigan at 12:50am,
flashed a gun and demanded cash. The clerk turned him down
because he said he couldn't open the cash register without a
food order. When the man ordered onion rings, the clerk said
they weren't available for breakfast. The man, frustrated,
walked away.
Kentucky: Two men tried to pull the front off a cash machine by
running a chain from the machine to the bumper of their pickup
truck. Instead of pulling the front panel off the machine, though,
they pulled the bumper off their truck. Scared, they left the scene
and drove home. With the chain still attached to the machine. With
their bumper still attached to the chain. With their vehicle's
license plate still attached to the bumper.
A thief burst into the bank one day wearing a ski mask and carrying
a gun. Aiming his gun at the guard, the thief yelled, "FREEZE,
MOTHER-STICKERS, THIS IS A F----UP!" For a moment, everyone was
silent. Then the snickers started. The guard completely lost it
and doubled over laughing. It probably saved his life, because
he'd been about to draw his gun. He couldn't have drawn and fired
before the thief got him. The thief ran away and is still at large.
In memory of the event, the bank later put a plaque on the wall
engraved "Freeze, mother-stickers, this is a f----up!"
Possible Software Conflicts (for the non-techie)
I'm currently running the latest version of GirlFriend and I've been
having some problems lately. I've been running the same version of
DrinkingBuddies 1.0 forever as my primary application, and all the
GirlFriend releases I've tried have always conflicted with it. I hear
that DrinkingBuddies won't crash if GirlFriend is run in background
mode and the sound is turned off. But I'm embarrassed to say I can't
find the switch to turn the sound off. I just run them separately, and
it works okay.
GirlFriend also seems to have a problem co-existing with my Golf
program, often trying to abort Golf with some sort of timing
incompatibility.
I probably should have stayed with GirlFriend 1.0, but I thought I
might see better performance from GirlFriend 2.0. After months of
conflicts and other problems, I consulted a friend who has had
experience with GirlFriend 2.0. He said I probably didn't have enough
cache to run GirlFriend 2.0, and eventually it would require a Token
Ring to run properly. He was right-as soon as I purged my cache, it
uninstalled itself.
Shortly after that, I installed GirlFriend 3.0 beta. All the bugs were
supposed to be gone, but the first time I used it, it gave me a virus
anyway. I had to clean out my whole system and shut down for a while.
I very cautiously upgraded to GirlFriend 4.0. This time I used a
SCSI probe first and also installed a virus protection program. It
worked okay for a while until I discovered that GirlFriend 1.0 was
still in my system. I tried running GirlFriend 1.0 again with
GirlFriend 4.0 still installed, but GirlFriend 4.0 has a feature I
didn't know about that automatically senses the presence of any
other version of GirlFriend and communicates with it in some
way, which results in the immediate removal of both versions.
The version I have now works pretty well, but there are still some
problems. Like all versions of GirlFriend, it is written in some
obscure language I can't understand, much less reprogram. Frankly I
think there is too much attention paid to the look and feel rather
than the desired functionality. Also, to get the best connections
with your hardware, you usually have to use gold-plated contacts.
And I've never liked how GirlFriend is totally "object-oriented."
A year ago, a friend of mine upgraded his version of GirlFriend to
GirlFriendPlus 1.0, which is a Terminate and Stay Resident version
of GirlFriend. He discovered that GirlFriendPlus 1.0 expires
within a year if you don't upgrade to Fiancee 1.0. So he did, but
soon after that, he had to upgrade to Wife 1.0, which he describes
as a huge resource hog. It has taken up all his space, so he can't
load anything else. One of the primary reasons he decided to go
with Wife 1.0 was because it came bundled with FreeSexPlus.
Well, it turns out the resource allocation module of Wife 1.0
sometimes prohibits access to FreeSexPlus, particularly the new
Plug-Ins he wanted to try. On top of that, Wife 1.0 must be
running on a well warmed-up system before he can do anything.
Although he did not ask for it, Wife 1.0 came with MotherInLaw 1.0
which has an automatic pop-up feature he can't turn-off. I told him
to try installing Mistress 1.0, but he said he heard if you try to run
it without first uninstalling Wife 1.0, Wife 1.0 will delete MSMoney
files before doing the uninstall itself. Then Mistress 1.0 won't
install anyway because of insufficient resources.
I suppose the moral of the story is: know your system's hardware,
it's software requirements and compatibilities and be real careful
about what software you install and when and how you upgrade.
(Submitted by Elena Shur)
Mars & Venus
You know that book Men are from Mars, Women from Venus?? Well, here's
a prime example of that. This assignment was actually turned in by two
of my English students: Rebecca and Gary. This story was completed for
English 44A, Creative Writing, at SMU taught by Professor Miller.
In-class assignment for Wednesday: Today we will be experimenting with
a new form called the tandem story. The process is simple. Each person
will pair off with the person sitting to his or her immediate right.
One of you will then write the first paragraph of a short story. The
partner will read the first paragraph and then add another paragraph to the
story. The first person will then add a third paragraph, and so on back and
forth. Remember to re-read what has been written each time in order to
keep the story coherent. The story is over when both agree a conclusion
has been reached.
(Rebecca)
At first, Laurie couldn't decide which kind of tea she wanted. The
chamomile, which used to be her favorite for lazy evenings at home, now
reminded her too much of Carl, who once said, in happier times, that he
liked chamomile. But she felt she must now, at all costs, keep her mind
off Carl. His possessiveness was suffocating, and if she thought about
him too much her asthma started acting up again. So chamomile was out
of the question.
(Gary)
Meanwhile, Advance Sergeant Carl Harris, leader of the attack squadron
now in orbit over Skylon 4, had more important things to think about than
the neuroses of an air-headed asthmatic bimbo named Laurie with whom he had
spent one sweaty night over a year ago. "A.S. Harris to Geostation 17,"
he said into his transgalactic communicator. "Polar orbit established.
No sign of resistance so far..." But before he could sign off a bluish
particle beam flashed out of nowhere and blasted a hole through his ship's
cargo bay. The jolt from the direct hit sent him flying out of his seat
and across the cockpit.
(Rebecca)
He bumped his head and died almost immediately, but not before he felt
one last pang of regret for psychologically brutalizing the one woman who
had ever truly loved him. Soon afterwards, earth stopped its pointless
hostilities towards the peaceful farmers of Skylon 4. "Congress Passes
Law Permanently Abolishing War and Space Travel." Laurie read in her
newspaper one morning. The news simultaneously excited and bored her.
She stared out the window, dreaming of her youth--when the days had passed
unhurriedly and carefree, with no newspapers to read, no television to
distract her from her sense of innocent wonder at all the beautiful things
around her. "Why must one lose one's innocence to become a woman?" she
pondered wistfully.
(Gary)
Little did she know, but she has less than 10 seconds to live. Thousands
of miles about the city, the Anu'udrian mothership launched the first of
its lithium fusion missiles. The dim-witted wimpy peaceniks who pushed
the unilateral Aerospace Disarmament Treaty through Congress had left
Earth a defenseless target for the hostile alien empires who were
determined to destroy the human race. Within two hours after the passage
of the treaty the Anu'udrian ships were on course for Earth, carrying
enough firepower to pulverize the entire planet. With no one to stop
them, they swiftly initiated their diabolical plan. The lithium fusion
missile entered the atmosphere unimpeded. The President, in his
top-secret mobile submarine headquarters on the ocean floor off the coast
of Guam, felt inconceivably massive explosion which vaporized Laurie and
85 million other Americans. The President slammed his fist on the
conference table, "We cannot allow this! I'm going to veto that treaty!
Let's blow 'em out of the sky!"
(Rebecca)
This is absurd. I refuse to continue this mockery of literature. My
writing partner is a violent, chauvinistic, semi-literate adolescent.
(Gary)
Yeah? Well, you're a self-centered tedious neurotic whose attempts at
writing are the literary equivalent of Valium.
(Rebecca)
A**hole.
(Gary)
Bitch.
Bad Day
So you think you're having a bad day. The following is taken from a
Florida newspaper:
A man was working on his motorcycle on his patio and his wife was in the
house in the kitchen. The man was racing the engine on the motorcycle
and somehow, the motorcycle slipped into gear. The man, still holding
the handlebars, was dragged through a glass patio door and the
motorcycle dumped onto the floor inside the house.
The wife, hearing the crash, ran into the dining room, and found her
husband laying on the floor, cut and bleeding, the motorcycle lying
next to him and the patio door shattered. The wife ran to the phone
and summoned an ambulance. Because they lived on a fairly large hill,
the wife went down the several flights of long steps to the street to
direct the paramedics to her husband.
After the ambulance arrived and transported the husband to the hospital,
the wife uprighted the motorcycle and pushed it outside. Seeing that
gas had spilled on the floor, the wife obtained some papers towels,
blotted up the gasoline, and threw the towels in the toilet.
The husband was treated at the hospital and was released to come home.
After arriving home, he looked at the shattered patio door and the
damage done to his motorcycle. He became despondent, went into the
bathroom, sat on the toilet and smoked a cigarette. After finishing
the cigarette, he flipped it between his legs into the toilet bowl
while still seated.
The wife, who was in the kitchen, heard a loud explosion and her husband
screaming. She ran into the bathroom and found her husband laying on the
floor. His trousers had been blown away and he was suffering burns on
the buttocks, the back of his legs and his groin. The wife again ran
to the phone and called for an ambulance.
The same ambulance crew was dispatched and the wife met them at the
street. The paramedics loaded the husband on the stretcher and began
carrying him to the street. While they were going down the stairs to
the street accompanied by the wife, one of the paramedics asked the
wife how the husband had burned himself. She told them and the
paramedics started laughing so hard, one of them tipped the stretcher
and dumped the husband out. He fell down the remaining steps and
broke his arm.
So, how about that for a monday morning starter ??
Submitted by Peter Staal
The Man from Microsoft
There was a knock on the door. It was the man from Microsoft.
"Not you again," I said.
"Sorry," he said, a little sheepishly. "I guess you know why I'm
here."
Indeed I did. Microsoft's $300 million campaign to promote the
Windows 95 operating system was meant to be universally effective, to
convince every human being on the planet that Windows 95 was an
essential, some would say integral, part of living. Problem was, not
everyone had bought it.
Specifically, I hadn't bought it. I was the Last Human Being Without
Windows 95. And now this little man from Microsoft was at my door,
and he wouldn't take no for an answer.
"No," I said.
"You know I can't take that," he said, pulling out a copy of Windows
95 from a briefcase. "Come on. Just one copy. That's all we ask."
"Not interested," I said. "Look, isn't there someone else you can go
bother for a while? There's got to be someone else on the planet who
doesn't have a copy."
"Well, no," The Microsoft man said. "You're the only one."
"You can't be serious. Not everyone on the planet has a computer," I
said.
"Hell, not everyone on the planet has a PC! Some people own
Macintoshes, which run their own operating system. And some people
who have PCs run OS/2, though I hear that's just a rumor. In short,
there are some people who just have no use for Windows 95."
The Microsoft man look perplexed. "I'm missing your point," he said.
"Use!" I screamed. "Use! Use! Use! Why BUY it, if you can't USE
it?"
"Well, I don't know anything about this 'use' thing you're going on
about," The Microsoft man said. "All I know is that according to our
records, everyone else on the planet has a copy."
"People without computers?"
"Got 'em."
"Amazonian Indians?"
"We had to get some malaria shots to go in, but yes."
"The Amish."
"Check."
"Oh, come on," I said. "They don't even wear BUTTONS. How did you
get them to buy a computer operating system?"
"We told them there were actually 95 very small windows in the box,"
the Microsoft man admitted. "We sort of lied. Which means we are all
going to Hell, every single employee of Microsoft." He was somber for
a minute, but then perked right up. "But that's not the point!" he
said. "The point is, EVERYONE has a copy. Except you."
"So what?" I said. "If everyone else jumped off a cliff, would you
expect me to do it, too?"
"If we spent $300 million advertising it? Absolutely."
"No."
"Jeez, back to that again," the Microsoft man said. "Hey. I'll tell
you what. I'll GIVE you a copy. For free. Just take it and install
it on your computer." He waved the box in front of me.
"No," I said again. "No offense, pal. But I don't need it. And
frankly, your whole advertising blitz has sort of offended me. I
mean, it's a computer operating system! Great. Fine.
Swell. Whatever. But you guys are advertising it like it creates world
peace or something."
"It did."
"Pardon?"
"World peace. It was part of the original design. Really. One
button access. Click on it, poof, end to strife and hunger. Simple."
"So what happened?"
"Well, you know," he said. "It took up a lot of space on the hard
drive. We had to decide between it or the Microsoft Network. Anyway,
we couldn't figure out how to make a profit off of world peace."
"Go away," I said.
"I can't," he said. "I'll be killed if I fail.."
"You have got to be kidding," I said.
"Look," the Microsoft man said, "We sold this to the AMISH. The
Amish!
Right now, they're opening the boxes and figuring out they've been had.
We'll be pitchforked if we ever step into Western Pennsyvania again.
But we did it. So to have YOU holding out, well, it's embarassing.
It's embarassing to the company. It's embarassing to the product.
It's embarassing to BILL."
"Bill Gates does not care about me," I said.
"He's watching right now," the Microsoft man said. "Borrowed one of
those military spy satellites just for the purpose. It's also got one
of those high-powered lasers. You close that door on me, zap, I'm a
pile of grey ash."
"He wouldn't do that," I said, "He might hit that copy of Windows 95
by accident."
"Oh, Bill's gotten pretty good with that laser," the Microsoft man
said, nervously. "Okay. I wasn't supposed to do this, but you leave
me no choice.
If you take this copy of Windows 95, we will reward you handsomely.
In fact, we'll give you your own Caribbean island! How does
Montserrat sound?"
"Terrible. There's an active volcano there."
"It's only a small one," the Microsoft man said.
"Look," I said, "even if you DID convince me to take that copy of
Windows 95, what would you do then? You'd have totally saturated the
market. That would be it. No new worlds to conquer. What would you
do then?"
The Microsoft man held up another box and gave it to me.
"'Windows 95....For Pets'?!?!?"
"There's a LOT of domestic animals out there," he said.
I shut the door quickly. There was a surprised yelp, the sound of a
laser,and then nothing.
"The Wonders of Sharks on TV" by Dave Barry
... So the documentary-makers stick with sharks. Generally, their
procedure is to scatter bleeding fish pieces around their boat, so as
to infest the waters. I would estimate that the primary food source of
sharks today is bleeding fish pieces scattered by people making
documentaries. Once the sharks arrive, they are generally fairly
listless. The general shark attitude seems to be: "Oh God, another
documentary." So the divers have to somehow goad them into attacking,
under the guise of Scientific Research. "We know very little about the
effect of electricity on sharks," the narrator will say, in a deeply
scientific voice. "That is why Todd is going to jab this Great White
in the testicles with a cattle prod." The divers keep this kind of
thing up until the shark finally gets irritated and snaps at them, and
then they act as though this was a totally unexpected and very
dangerous development, although clearly it is what they wanted all
along.
Submitted by Doug Larimore