A cannibal warrior is experiencing severe gastric distress, so he goes to his Village Witch Doctor with his complaint. The VWD examines him and, concluding that something he ate disagreed with him, began to cross examine him about his recent diet. "Well, I ate a missionary yesterday. Do you think that could be the problem?" The VWD says "Hmmmm." (All doctors say "Hmmmm.") "That could be. Tell me a bit about this missionary." "Well, he was tall for a white man, wearing a brown robe. He was walking down the trail, not watching for danger, so I speared him, dragged him home, cleaned him, boiled him and ate him." "Ah-hah!" (All doctors say "Ah-hah!") There's your problem," smiles the VWD. You boiled him, but he was a friar!" % A carpet installer decides to take a cigarette break after completing the installation in the first of several rooms he has to do. Finding them missing from his pocket he begins searching, only to notice a small lump in his recently completed carpet-installation. Not wanting to pull up all that work for a lousy pack of cigarettes he simply walks over and pounds the lump flat. Foregoing the break, he continues on to the other rooms to be carpeted. At the end of the day, while loading his tools into his truck, two events occur almost simultaneously: he spies his pack of cigarettes on the dashboard of the truck, and the lady of the house summons him imperiously: "Have you seen my parakeet?" % A castaway was washed ashore after many days on the open sea. The island on which he landed was populated by savage cannibals who tied him, dazed and exhausted, to a thick stake. They then proceeded to cut his arms with their spears and drink his blood. This continued for several days until the castaway could stand no more. He yelled for the cannibal chief and declared, "You can kill me if you want to, but this torture with the spears has got to stop. Dammit, I'm tired of getting stuck for the drinks." % A GOOD WAY TO THREATEN somebody is to light a stick of dynamite. Then you call the guy and hold the burning fuse to the phone. "Hear that?" you say. "That's dynamite, baby." -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. % A guy returns from a long trip to Europe, having left his beloved dog in his brother's care. The minute he's cleared customs, he calls up his brother and inquires after his pet. "Your dog's dead," replies his brother bluntly. The guy is devastated. "You know how much that dog meant to me," he moaned into the phone. "Couldn't you at least have thought of a nicer way of breaking the news? Couldn't you have said, `Well, you know, the dog got outside one day, and was crossing the street, and a car was speeding around a corner...' or something...? Why are you always so thoughtless?" "Look, I'm sorry," said his brother, "I guess I just didn't think." "Okay, okay, let's just put it behind us. How are you anyway? How's Mom?" His brother is silent a moment. "Uh," he stammers, "uh... Mom got outside one day..." % A guy walks into a pub and asks: "Does anyone here own a Doberman? I feel really bad about this, but my Chihuahua just killed it." A man leaps to his feet and replies, "Yes, I do, but how can that be? I raised that dog from a pup to be a vicious killer." "Yes, well, that's all well and good," replied the first, "but my dog's stuck in its throat." % A man is walking along when he sees a funeral procession going by, the longest procession he's ever seen. It seems to consist of the hearse, followed by a man with a Doberman on a leash, followed by several hundred other men. After watching for a few minutes, he can restrain his curiosity no longer, and walks up to one of the mourners. "Excuse me, sir, I don't mean to bother you in your moment of grief, but this is the strangest procession I've ever seen. What happened, who is the funeral for?" "Well, it's nothing special, really, the funeral is for the mother- in-law of the man at the front of the procession. You see, his Doberman attacked and killed her." "That's awful!", replies the onlooker. "But... um... tell me, you don't think he'd let me borrow that dog, do you?" "Get in line, buddy," replies the mourner, "get in line." % A New Yorker was driving through Berkeley when he saw a big crowd gathered by the side of the street. Curiousity got the better of him and he leaned out of his window to ask an onlooker what was going on. The fellow explained that a protestor against the U.S. position in South America had doused himself with gasoline and set himself on fire. "That's terrible," gasped the man. "But why is everyone still standing around?" "Well, they're taking up a collection for his wife and kids," the onlooker explained. "Would you be willing to help?" "Well, sure," replied the New Yorker. "I suppose I could spare a gallon or two." % A priest was walking along the cliffs at Dover when he came upon two locals pulling another man ashore on the end of a rope. "That's what I like to see", said the priest, "A man helping his fellow man". As he was walking away, one local remarked to the other, "Well, he sure doesn't know the first thing about shark fishing." % A Southern boy graduates from high school heads north to college, taking the family dog, Old Blue with him, for company. He's only been there a few weeks when he gets a call from his girlfriend; seems like they've got a problem, and she needs a thousand dollars to take care of it. The boy calls his folks: "How are you?" they ask. "Oh, I'm fine," he says. "And how," they ask, "is Old Blue?" "Well, he's kind of depressed. You see, there's this lady up here that teaches dogs to talk, and Ol' Blue is feelin' kind of left out 'cause he's the only dog that doesn't know how to talk. She charges a thousand dollars." The parents send the boy the thousand dollars, he forwards it to Mary Lou, and everything's fine until Christmas vacation. The boy leaves Ol' Blue at his dorm, 'cause he just can't figure out what to tell his parents. Sure enough, when he gets home, the first thing his father wants to know is "Where's Old Blue?" "Well, Pa," says the boy. "I was driving on home and Old Blue was talking away about this and that when we passed the Buford's farm. Old Blue, well, he said, `Say, what do you think your mother would do if I told her that your father's been comin' over here and seeing Mrs. Buford all these years?'" The father looks at his son -- "You shot that dog, didn't you, boy?" % A truly wise man never plays leapfrog with a unicorn. % A truly wise woman never plays leapfrog with a unicorn. % A woman was married to a golfer. One day she asked, "If I were to die, would you remarry?" After some thought, the man replied, "Yes, I've been very happy in this marriage and I would want to be this happy again." The wife asked, "Would you give your new wife my car?" "Yes," he replied. "That's a good car and it runs well." "Well, would you live in this house?" "Yes, it is a lovely house and you have decorated it beautifully. I've always loved it here." "Well, would you give her my golf clubs?" "No." "Why not?" "She's left handed." % After [Benjamin] Franklin came a herd of Electrical Pioneers whose names have become part of our electrical terminology: Myron Volt, Mary Louise Amp, James Watt, Bob Transformer, etc. These pioneers conducted many important electrical experiments. For example, in 1780 Luigi Galvani discovered (this is the truth) that when he attached two different kinds of metal to the leg of a frog, an electrical current developed and the frog's leg kicked, even though it was no longer attached to the frog, which was dead anyway. Galvani's discovery led to enormous advances in the field of amphibian medicine. Today, skilled veterinary surgeons can take a frog that has been seriously injured or killed, implant pieces of metal in its muscles, and watch it hop back into the pond just like a normal frog, except for the fact that it sinks like a stone. -- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?" % All extremists should be taken out and shot. % Always run from a knife and rush a gun. -- Jimmy Hoffa % An encounter with a beautiful woman is good medicine for the well organized logical mind -- a little jolt never hurt. Note that the anarchists have been saying this for years about the A-bomb and civilization. -- Encyclopadia Apocryphia % An old man is lying on his deathbed with all his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren gathered around, teary-eyed at the approaching finale of a deeply loved family member. The old man is in a light coma, and the doctors have confirmed that the waiting will be over within the next twenty-four hours. Suddenly, the old man opens his eyes whispers: "I must be dreaming of heaven... I smell my daughter Lisle's strudel." "No, no, grandfather, you are not dreaming", he is reassured. "Grandmother is baking strudel right now." A faint smile crosses the old man's face. "Go and get me a sliver of strudel," he says, "she bakes the finest strudel in the world." One of the grandchildren is immediately dispatched to honor the old man's request, and, after what seems a long time, he returns empty-handed. "Did you bring me some of Lisle's strudel?", the old man quavers. "I'm... I'm very sorry, grandfather, but she says it's for the funeral." % And so it goes. It is humiliating, when you should know better, to become victim of the timeless story of the little brown dog running across the freight yard, crossing all the railroad tracks until a switch engine nipped off the end of his tail between wheel and rail. The little dog yelped, and he spun so quickly to check himself out that the next wheel chopped through his little brown neck. The moral is, of course, never lose your head over a piece of tail. -- John D. MacDonald, "The Scarlet Ruse" % And so, men, we can see that human skin is an even more complex and fascinating organ than we thought it was, and if we want to keep it looking good, we have to care for it as though it were our own. One approach is to undergo a painful surgical procedure wherein your skin is turned inside-out, so the young cells are on the outside, but then of course you have the unpleasant side effect that your insides gradually fill up with dead old cells and you explode. So this procedure is pretty much limited to top Hollywood stars for whom youthful beauty is a career necessity, such as Elizabeth Taylor and Orson Welles. -- Dave Barry, "Saving Face" % As a professional humorist, I often get letters from readers who are interested in the basic nature of humor. "What kind of a sick perverted disgusting person are you," these letters typically ask, "that you make jokes about setting fire to a goat?" ... -- Dave Barry, "Why Humor is Funny" % As I bit into the nectarine, it had a crisp juiciness about it that was very pleasurable - until I realized it wasn't a nectarine at all, but A HUMAN HEAD!! -- Jack Handley % As you reach for the web, a venomous spider appears. Unable to pull your hand away in time, the spider promptly, but politely, bites you. The venom takes affect quickly causing your lips to turn plaid along with your complexion. You become dazed, and in your stupor you fall from the limbs of the tree. Snap! Your head falls off and rolls all over the ground. The instant before you croak, you hear the whoosh of a vacuum being filled by the air surrounding your head. Worse yet, the spider is suing you for damages. % At social gatherings, I would amuse everyone by standing uponst the coffee table and striking meself repeatedly upon the head with a brick. -- H.R. Gumby % "Based on what you know about him in history books, what do you think Abraham Lincoln would be doing if he were alive today? (1) Writing his memoirs of the Civil War. (2) Advising the President. (3) Desperately clawing at the inside of his coffin." -- David Letterman % Bitch, bitch, bitch -- That's all I ever hear, Ever since the dog ate the baby, "Get rida the dog, get rida the dog." % Blood flows down one leg and up the other. % Blood is thicker than water, and much tastier. % "By the time they had diminished from 50 to 8, the other dwarves began to suspect 'Hungry' ..." -- Gary Larson, "The Far Side" % **** CONVENTION REMINDER No experiment was approved for the convention by the Human Subjects Committee of the Psychiatric Convention Planning Team. If you notice smoke coming from under a closed door, if you find a body on the hotel carpet, or if you just meet someone who orders you to press a button marked "450 volts", react as you would normally. % Crush! Kill! Destroy! % Cut a man's hand when you fight him. He'll freeze, fascinated by the sight of his own blood. That's when you stick him in the throat. -- Gerry Youghkins % Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis. -- Jack Handley % Dammit, how many times do I have to tell you? _____FIRST you rape, ____THEN you pillage!! % Damned if I know. And you can be fuckin' sure I'll never rent no car from Avis again. -- Herbie Sperling, on the meaning of two pistols and an axe used in three murders being found in the trunk of his rented car. % Dear Abby: I have two brothers. One was sent to the electric chair when I was a child. My mother died in an insane asylum. My father is a pimp and my sister is a very successful and highly paid prostitute. My other brother is a graduate student attending Purdue University. Recently I met a wonderful girl who has just been released from prison for murdering her illegitimate child with a Zip-loc sandwich bag. We're very much in love and want to be married after her venereal disease is cured. My problem is this: should I tell her about my brother at Purdue? Sincerely, Undecided. % Dessert is probably the most important stage of the meal, since it will be the last thing your guests remember before they pass out all over the table. -- The Anarchist Cookbook % Did you know? EVERY TIME A LOAF OF BREAD IS BAKED, APPROXIMATELY 150,000,000 YEASTS ARE KILLED Come to the award-winning 1987 film, "The Very Small and Quiet Screams" -- a cinematic electromicrograph of yeasts being baked. A must for those who care about yeast, and especially for those who don't. SPONSORED BY Brown Anaerobe Rights Coalition (BARC) Student Bakers for Social Responsibility Coalition for the ELevation of Life (CELL) Campus Crusade for Fetal Matters Defend all life: "From greatest to least, from human to yeast!" % Dig it, first they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them, then they even shoved a fork in a victim's stomach. Wild! -- Bernadine Dohrn, on the Manson killings % Does it rape elephants? -- Brent Byer % Don Ameche: 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, "The Further Adventures of Larson E. Whipsnade and other Tarradiddles" % Don't crush that dwarf, hand me the pliers! -- Firesign Theatre % Dozens of bears are found dead in Alaska and Canada every summer, killed by blood lost to the voracious mosquito. The estimated life-expectancy of a naked man on the tundra in summer is about 15 minutes. In that time, approximately 250,000 mosquitoes would have drawn enough blood to kill him. -- Gus McLeavy, "Day-by-Day Trivia Almanac" % Dr. Fritzkee's Lucky Astrology Diet The problem with the diets of today is that most women who do achieve that magic weight, seventy-six pounds, are still fat. Dr. Fritzkee's Lucky Astrology Diet is a sure-fire method of reducing with the added luxury that you never feel hungry. Here's how the diet works: FOODS ALLOWED First Month: One egg Second Month: A raisin Third Month: Pumpkin pie with whipped cream and chocolate sauce. If after the third month you haven't gotten to your dream weight, try lopping off parts of your body until those scales tip just right for you. % Driving in Texas is simple. For the first 100 miles you swerve to avoid jackrabbits. For the second 100 miles you hit whatever jackrabbits get in the way. After that you chase off into the brush after them. % 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-face country squire popped his head over the wall and shouted, "Hey, you almost hit my wife." "Did I?" cried one hunter, aghast. "Terribly sorry. Have a shot at mine, over there." % Eat one live toad the first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day. [Well, actually, to either of you... Ed.] % Eat the rich -- the poor are tough and stringy. % Even popularity can be overdone. In Rome, along at first, you are full of regrets that Michaelangelo died; but by and by you only regret that you didn't see him do it. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" % Every suicide is a solution to a problem. -- Jean Baechler % Famous last words: 1: Everything that you'll need to know is in the manual. 2: You and what army? 3: Don't worry, I can handle it. 4: If you were as smart as you think you are, you wouldn't be a cop. 5: I don't see how they make a profit out of this stuff at a dollar and a quarter a fifth. 6: We're just getting into semantics again. 7: Everything's under control. 8: He's an asshole! Don't try to "shush" me! % Fine day to throw a party. Throw him as far as you can. % FOR SALE: Parachute. Used once. Never opened. Slightly Stained. % FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE OBSCURE FILMS! #6 RAZORBACK: Paul Harbride, 1984, 2 hours 25 min. One of the great Australian films of the early 1980's, and arguably the best movie ever made about a large, man-eating hog. Some violence. With Gregory Harrison. % FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE OBSCURE FILMS: #10 CARTABLANCA: Bogart stars as the owner of a north african nightclub that sells only Mexican beer. Of course, this policy gets him into no end of trouble with the local French authorities who would really prefer wine and the occupying Germans who believe that only their beer is fit to be sold. Wacky events ensue until the gripping climax in which the much-hated German beer distributer is drowned in a vat. % FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE OBSCURE FILMS: #11 MONOPOLI: Peter Weir's classic film examining the false heroism of parlour games. The powerful ending of the film sees one young man after another charge toward GO, only to senselessly lose his life on the Boardwalk property. % FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE OBSCURE FILMS: #4 WITLESS: Peter Weir directs Sylvester Stallone in the most challenging role of his career. Stallone plays a Philadelphia police officer on the run from corrupt officials. He is wounded and then nursed back to health by Amish Mennonites. Fearful that they might unwittingly reveal his hiding place, he blows them all away. % FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE OBSCURE FILMS: #7 OUT OF "OUT OF AFRICA": This film is a compilation of selected news clips depicting audiences frantically pushing and shoving to get out of theatres where "Out of Africa" is showing. Many people are trampled to death in the frenzy. Due to its violence and offensive language, not recommended for younger viewers. % FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE OBSCURE FILMS: #8 THE SMURFS AND THE CUISINART (1986) The lovable little blue Smurfs encounter a lovable little kitchen appliance, which invites them to play. The Smurfs learn a valuable (if sometimes fatal) lesson. THE SMURFS AND THE CARBON-DIOXIDE INDUSTRIAL LASER (1987) The inevitable sequel. The lovable and somewhat mangled surviving Smurfs team up with the Care Bears to encounter a cute, lovable piece of high-tech welding equipment, which teaches them the magic of becoming rather greasy smoke. Heartwarming fun for the entire family. % FORTUNE PRESENTS FAMOUS LAST WORDS: #4 Socrates: I DRANK WHAT!?!? Tarzan: Who greased the grape viiiiiiiiiiiinnnneee........ Al Capone: There's a violin in my violin case! Pilot, TWA Fl. #343: What's a mountain goat doing 'way up here? % God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, courage to change the things we can, and wisdom to hide the bodies of the slobs we have to kill for pissing us off ... % Goldfish... what stupid animals. Even Wayne Cody stops eating before he bursts. % Groundhog Day has been observed only once in Los Angeles because when the groundhog came out of its hole, it was killed by a mudslide. -- Johnny Carson % Guns don't kill people. Bullets kill people. % Happy is the child whose father died rich. % Harris had the beefsteak pie between his knees, and was carving it, and George and I were waiting with our plates ready. "Have you got a spoon there?" says Harris; "I want a spoon to help the gravy with." The hamper was close behind us, and George and I both turned round to reach one out. We were not five seconds getting it. When we looked round again, Harris and the pie were gone! It was a wide, open field. There was not a tree or a bit of hedge for hundreds of yards. He could not have tumbled into the river, because we were on the water side of him, and he would have had to climb over us to do it. George and I gazed all about. Then we gazed at each other. "Has he been snatched up to heaven?" I queried. "They'd hardly have taken the pie, too," said George. There seemed weight in this objection, and we discarded the heavenly theory. "I suppose the truth of the matter is," suggested George, descending to the commonplace and practicable, "that there has been an earthquake." And then he added, with a touch of sadness in his voice: "I wish he hadn't been carving that pie." -- Jerome K. Jerome, "Three Men In A Boat" % Harry and Fred were playing their Sunday afternoon golf game. The game, as always, was close. They were at the treacherous 12th hole: a par three that required a perfect first shot over a large pond and onto a tiny green. There were sand traps on the other three sides of the green, and a small road 50 feet beyond it. Harry went first. He carefully addressed the ball and hit a good shot that landed just on the edge of the green, narrowly avoiding the pond. Just as Fred addressed his ball, he looked up and noticed a funeral procession along the road just behind the green. Fred put down his club, took his hat off, and waited for the entire procession to pass. As soon as the cars were gone he put his hat back on and started addressing the ball again. Harry said, "Damn, Fred. That was a really nice thing you did, waiting for the funeral to pass like that." Fred finished his swing, making perfect contact with the ball. It was an excellent shot that landed 7 feet from the hole. "It's the least I could do," he said, smiling at his shot, "We were married for 22 years, you know." % Harry, a golfing enthusiast if there ever was one, arrived home from the club to an irate, ranting wife. "I'm leaving you, Harry," his wife announced bitterly. "You promised me faithfully that you'd be back before six and here it is almost nine. It just can't take that long to play 18 holes of golf." "Honey, wait," said Harry. "Let me explain. I know what I promised you, but I have a very good reason for being late. Fred and I tee'd off right on time and everything was find for the first three holes. Then, on the fourth tee Fred had a stroke. I ran back to the clubhouse but couldn't find a doctor. And, by the time I got back to Fred, he was dead. So, for the next 15 holes, it was hit the ball, drag Fred, hit the ball, drag Fred... % Have you flogged your kid today? % He had been bitten by a dog, but didn't give it much thought until he noticed that the wound was taking a remarkably long time to heal. Finally, he consulted a doctor who took one look at it and ordered the dog brought in. Just as he had suspected, the dog had rabies. Since it was too late to give the patient serum, the doctor felt he had to prepare him for the worst. The poor man sat down at the doctor's desk and began to write. His physician tried to comfort him. "Perhaps it won't be so bad," he said. "You needn't make out your will right now." "I'm not making out any will," relied the man. "I'm just writing out a list of people I'm going to bite!" % He heard the snick of a rifle bolt and found himself peering down the muzzle of a weapon held by a drunken liquor store owner -- "There's a conflict," he said, "there's a conflict between land and people... the people have to go..." -- Stan Ridgeway, "Call of the West" % He is useless on top of the ground; he ought to be under it, inspiring the cabbages. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" % He was a cowboy, mister, and he loved the land. He loved it so much he made a woman out of dirt and married her. But when he kissed her, she disintegrated. Later, at the funeral, when the preacher said, "Dust to dust," some people laughed, and the cowboy shot them. At his hanging, he told the others, "I'll be waiting for you in heaven -- with a gun." -- Jack Handley % He was the sort of person whose personality would be greatly improved by a terminal illness. % He was the world's only armless sculptor. He put the chisel in his mouth and his wife hit him on the back of the head with a mallet. -- Fred Allen % He's got the heart of a little child, and he keeps it in a jar on his desk. % "Heard you were moving your piano, so I came over to help." "Thanks. Got it upstairs already." "Do it alone?" "Nope. Hitched the cat to it." "How would that help?" "Used a whip." % Hello, friend! You say things aren't going too well? You say you have a date with your favorite girl when it starts raining so hard you can't see? And you're out on some back road when the car stalls and won't start, so you set off accross the fields, and 50 feet of barbed wire hits you right smack in the puss? And then there's a big explosion behind you and you don't hear your girl screaming any more? Well, take a walk in the sun and hold your head up high! You'll show the world; you'll tell them where to get off! You'll never give up, never give up, never give up -- that ship! % "Hello, Mrs. Premise!" "Oh, hello, Mrs. Conclusion! Busy day?" "Busy? I just spent four hours burying the cat." "Four hours to bury a cat!?" "Yes, he wouldn't keep still: wrigglin' about, 'owlin'..." "Oh, it's not dead then." "Oh no, no, but it's not at all a well cat, and as we're goin' away for a fortnight I thought I'd better bury it just to be on the safe side." "Quite right. You don't want to come back from Sorrento to a dead cat, do you?" -- Monty Python's Flying Circus % Help Stamp Out Rape! (Say Yes.) % HERE'S A GOOD JOKE to do during an earthquake. Straddle a big crack in the earth and if it opens wider, go, "Whoa! Whoa!" and flap your arms around as if you're going to fall. -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. % Hire the handicapped -- they're fun to watch! % Home of Doberman Propulsion Laboratories: The ultimate in watchdog weaponry. -- Chris Shaw % How to Raise Your I.Q. by Eating Gifted Children -- Book title by Lewis B. Frumkes % "How'd you get that flat?" "Ran over a bottle." "Didn't you see it?" "Damn kid had it under his coat." % I braved the contempt of my friends last week and ventured out to see Bambi, the Disney rerelease that is proving to be a hit once again in the box office. I was looking forward to a gentle, soothing, late afternoon relief from the Washington Summer. Instead I was traumatized. As a psycho-sexual return to the horrors of early adolescence, it couldn't be more effective. For the first half-hour, you're lulled into an agreeable sense of security and comfort. Birds twitter; small rabbits turn out to be great conversationalists. Pop is what Senator Moynihan would describe as an absent father, but Mom's there to make you feel OK in the odd thunderstorm. You make great friends, fool around on the ice, discover the meadow, generally mellow out. Then, without any particular warning, your mom gets shot, your voice breaks, huge growths start appearing on your head, and your peers start heading off into the clover with the apparent intention of having sex. Next thing you know, the forest burns down. If I were still eight, I think I'd prefer Rambo III. -- Townsend Davis % I can't stand this proliferation of paperwork. It's useless to fight the forms. You've got to kill the people producing them. -- Vladimir Kabaidze, general director of the Ivanovo Machine Building Works (near Moscow) in a speech to the Communist Party Conference % I collect rare photographs... I have two... One of Houdini locking his keys in his car... the other is a rare picture of Norman Rockwell beating up a child. -- Steven Wright % I could never learn to like her -- except on a raft at sea with no other provisions in sight. -- Mark Twain % I don't want to alarm anybody, but there is an excellent chance that the Earth will be destroyed in the next several days. Congress is thinking about eliminating a federal program under which scientists broadcast signals to alien beings. This would be a large mistake. Alien beings have nuclear blaster death cannons. You cannot cut off their federal programs as if they were merely poor people ... -- Dave Barry, "THE ALIENS ARE COMING, THE ALIENS ARE COMING!" % I GUESS I KINDA LOST CONTROL because in the middle of the play I ran up and lit the evil puppet villain on fire. No, I didn't. Just kidding. I just said that to illustrate one of the human emotions which is freaking out. Another emotion is greed, as when you kill someone for money or something like that. Another emotion is generosity, as when you pay someone double what he paid for his stupid puppet. -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. % I GUESS OF ALL MY UNCLES, I liked Uncle Caveman the best. We called him Uncle Caveman because he lived in a cave and because sometimes he'd eat one of us. Later, we found out he was a bear. -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. % I GUESS WE WERE ALL GUILTY, in a way. We shot him, we skinned him, and we all got a complimentary bumper sticker that said, "I helped skin Bob." -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. % I had a dream that all the victims of The Pill came back...boy, were they mad! -- Steven Wright % I had to hit him -- he was starting to make sense. % I have a very firm grasp on reality! I can reach out and strangle it any time! % "I know a life of crime led me to this sorry state. I blame society. Society made me what I am today!" "That's bullshit Archie. You're just a young suburban punk like me." "It still... hurts... auugghh!" "You're going to be okay..." "...gurgle..." "... maybe not." -- Repo Man % "I know what you're thinking -- `Did he fire six shots or only five?' Well, to tell you the truth, in all the excitement, I kind of lost track myself. But being this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: `Do I feel lucky?' Well, do you, punk?" -- Harry Callahan, badge #2211 % I love the smell of napalm in the morning. -- Robert Duval, "Apocalypse Now" % I read a column by George Will that Scarface should be rated X because parents were taking their children to see it. So what? Why should the motion-picture industry be responsible for our morality? Dad says to Mom, "Honey, Scarface is in town." "What's it about?" "Human scum who kill each other over cocaine deals." "Sounds great! Let's take the kids!" -- Ian Shoales % I wrecked trains because I like to see people die. I like to hear them scream. -- Sylvestre Matuschka, "the Hungarian Train Wreck Freak", escaped prison 1937, not heard from since % "I'm terribly sorry, sir," the novice barber apologized, after badly nicking a customer. "Let me wrap your head in a towel." "That's all right," said the customer. "I'll just take it home under my arm." % I've never struck a woman in my life, not even my own mother. -- W.C. Fields % IF A KID ASKS YOU where rain comes from, I think a cute thing to tell him is, "God is crying." And if he asks why God is crying, another cute thing to tell him is, "Probably because of something you did." -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. % If every kid had a funny tooth to bite down on whenever the world disappointed him, prussic acid could solve our population problems in one generation. -- G.C. Edmonson's Albert, "The Man Who Corrupted Earth" % ... If forced to travel on an airplane, try and get in the cabin with the Captain, so you can keep an eye on him and nudge him if he falls asleep or point out any mountains looming up ahead ... -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" % If Ricky Schroder and Gary Coleman had a fight on television with pool cues, who would win? (1) Ricky Schroder (2) Gary Coleman (3) The television viewing public -- David Letterman % If you go parachuting, and your parachute doesn't open, and your friends are all watching you fall, I think a funny gag would be to pretend you were swimming. -- Jack Handley % If you guys have a beef with her, that's her problem. Don't lay it on me. The old lady has to take care of her own weight. -- Herbie Sperling, convicted heroin dealer, on being arrested for narcotics possession at his mother's house. % If you laid all the Elvis impersonators in the world, end to end... you'd wanna run and get a steam roller, real fast. -- David Letterman % If you look rather casual with the knife when you flick it open, people don't like it. -- Gerry Youghkins % If you love something set it free. If it doesn't come back to you, hunt it down and kill it. % "If you're a real good kid, I'll give you a piggy-back ride on a buzz-saw." -- W. C. Fields % If you're a young Mafia gangster out on your first date, I bet it's real embarrassing if someone tries to kill you. -- Jack Handley % If your enemy is buried in quicksand up to his neck, pull him out. If he is buried up to his eyes, step on his head. -- Niccoli Machiavelli, "The Prince" % Inspector: "Mrs. Freem, was this your husband's first hunting accident?" Mrs. Freem: "His first fatal one, yes." -- Woody Allen % Inter-Dwarf Memo To: Dwarf-list From: Doc Re: S. White If that bitch cleans one more thermometer with Ajax, I'm gonna kill her. I'll give her apples, nice big apples. With surprises inside. Yeah, surprises. % Inter-Dwarf Memo To: Dwarf-list From: Happy Re: S. White Let it be noted that if she whistles that goddamned song one more time I'm gonna rip her fuckin' lips off. Have a nice day. % It is November first 1940; in the famous sound stage of THE WIZARD OF OZ on the MGM lot, a little man is lying face-up on the yellow brick road. His wide eyes stare upward into the blinding stage lights. He is wearing a kind of comic soldier's uniform with a yellow coat and puffy sleeves and big fez-like blue and yellow hat with a feather on top. His yellow hair and beard are the phony straw color of Hollywood. He could pass for some kind of cute in the typical tinsel-town way if it wasn't for the knife sticking out of his chest. *Someone had murdered a Munchkin.* -- Stuart Kaminsky, "Murder on the Yellow Brick Road" % It seems that John gets this phone call: "Hello," he answers. The voice on the other end of the line is hard and cold. "This is Susan," he hears. "We met at a party a few months ago. "Of course, Susan!", John replies. "How are you?" "Not very well. Remember how after the party you took me home and we parked? And you told me that I was a 'good sport'? Well, I'm pregnant and I'm going to kill myself tonight." John is silent for a few moments, collecting his thoughts. "Well," he finally replies, "you sure *are* a good sport." % It was a warm, sunny Sunday, and a man and his wife decided to take in the zoo. They spent the day, and at closing time they walked past the gorilla cage, and the man noticed the gorilla looking at his wife. "That gorilla is getting excited just looking at your tits," he said. "Why don't you take your blouse off and we'll see what he does?" At first she refused. But finally persuaded by her husband, she took off her blouse and bra. The gorilla went nuts. He started grunting and jumping up and down. "Hey," the husband said, "let's really blow his mind. Take off all your clothes and we'll see what he does." Again she said no and again he persuaded her. This time the ape really went bananas! He climbed up and down the bars, did flips, ran around in circles and tossed his food all over the cage. The husband went over to the cage, opened the door and pushed his wife in. "Now," said the husband, "tell that motherfucker you have a headache!" % It was on the tip of my tongue to tell them about the deer, but I ended up not doing it. That was one thing I kept to myself. I've never spoken or written of it until just now, today. And I have to tell you that it seems a lesser thing written down, damn near inconsequential. But for me it was the best part of that trip, the cleanest part, and it was a moment I found myself returning to, almost helplessly, when there was trouble in my life -- my first day in the bush in Vietnam, and this fellow walked into the clearing where we were with his hand over his nose and when he took his hand away there was no nose there because it had been shot off; the time the doctor told us our youngest son might be hydrocephalic (he turned out just to have an oversized head, thank God); the long crazy weeks before my mother died. I would find my thoughts turning back to that morning, the scuffed suede of her ears, the white flash of her tail. But eight hundred million Red Chinese don't give a shit, right? The most important things are the hardest to say, because words diminish them. It's hard to make strangers care about the good things in your life. -- Stephen King, "The Body" % It was pity stayed his hand. "Pity I don't have any more bullets," thought Frito. -- Harvard Lampoon, "Bored of the Rings" % "It's all so painfully empty and lonesome... I don't think I can stand any more of it... the whole dreadful way we are born, die, and are never missed. The fact there is *nobody*... nobody really... We come out of a yawning tomb of flesh and sink back finally into another tomb. What is the point of it all? Who thought up this sickening circle of flesh and blood? We come into the world bleeding and cut and our bones half-crushed only to emerge and suffer more torment, multilation, and then at the last lie down in some hole in the ground forever. Who could have thought it up, I wonder?" -- James Purdy % It's hard to outrun dead people because they don't have to breathe. -- Hokey, describing "Night of the Living Dead" % Joan of Arc is alive and medium well. % July 4 Statistics show that we lose more fools on this day than in all the other days of the year put together. This proves, by the number left in stock, that one Fourth of July per year is now inadequate, the country has grown so. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" % Keep patting your enemy on the back until a small bullet hole appears between your fingers. -- Joe Bonanno % Kill 'em all, and let God sort 'em out. % Kill a commie for Christ! % Kill a commy for your mommy. % Kill for the love of killing! Kill for the love of Kali! -- Hindu saying % Kill your parents. -- Jerry Rubin % Knights are hardly worth it. I mean, all that shell and so little meat... % Legalize free-enterprise murder: why should governments have all the fun? % Long, long ago, in the Old West, a rancher rode into town to buy supplies. When he returned, he found that his whole family had been killed, his wife raped, his house burned, and all his cattle rustled. When he told his distant neighbors about the tragedy, a few of them reported that the only stranger they had seen in the area for weeks was a tall desperado wearing a black hat and a red neckerchief. The cowboy saddled his fastest horse and set out to find the villian. He searched for months but couldn't catch up with the culprit; in town after dusty town he was told that a man fitting the description had been there but had just departed; usually after some heinous crime. One evening after a hard day's ride he came into a town, tied his horse, and entered the saloon. At a table in the corner sat an ugly man, with a black hat and a red neckerchief! Slowly the cowboy stalked up to this man, his hands resting upon his guns. "Are you the man who killed my family, raped my wife, burned my house and rustled my cattle?" "Probably; after so many, how can I be sure?" snarled the bandit. "You better cut that shit out!" % 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 % Many lower life forms demonstrate qualities that, at first, just don't seem survival oriented. For instance, the female praying mantis, after mating with, well, her mate, will devour him. For the male praying mantis, however, it's a catch-22. If he mates, he gets screwed out of an opportunity to mate again. If he doesn't mate, he doesn't reproduce, ending his family tree. This suicidal behavior is commonly called the Preying Mantis Syndrome -- and many life forms are periodically subject to its wrath. How did the preying mantis become stuck in such a awful, vicious cycle? This is probably what happened: The male mantis arrives at the residence of the female mantis. After some courtship exercises (dinner, a movie, inserting the diaphram) they mate. The female mantis, her lust for... lust being satisfied, relaxes while the male raids the refrigerator and returns home. This behavior continues until the male and female (mantissas?) establish a permanent relationship. Then the male establishes a new pattern of behavior: Football on Mondays, baseball on Tuesdays, happy hour on Wednesdays, uh, well, uh, working-late-at-the-office on Thursdays, etc. etc. The female tolerates this for awhile, then files for a divorce. After a long court battle, she concludes one thing: It simplifies matters tremendously to just eat him when you're done with him. Well, through the centuries of evolution, the Preying Mantis Syndrome has been carried up to the highest life forms, as well as to humans. That is why, one week out of every month, the female of the species will feel compelled to bite the head off of the male. The Syndrome is inescapable, but when it occurs in the female of our species, it's best to just avoid them for a while. % Mother seemed pleased by my draft notice. "Just think of all the people in England, they've chosen you, it's a great honour, son." Laughingly I felled her with a right cross. -- Spike Milligan % Moving along a dimly light street, a man I know was suddenly approached by a stranger who had slipped from the shadows nearby. "Please, sir," pleaded the stranger, "would you be so kind as to help a poor unfortunate fellow who is hungry and can't find work? All I have in the world is this gun." % My best argument against discrimination is quite simple: Does it really matter if the ABC people are inferior to the DEF people if they can tell one end of a gun from the other? % My girlfriend and I sure had a good time at the beach last summer. First she'd bury me in the sand, then I'd bury her. This summer I'm going to go back and dig her up. % "My God! Are we sure he was a liberal?" "Pretty sure. They pulled him from a Volvo." % Negotiate, my ass! Let's kill something! % Never count your chickens before they rip your lips off. % Never hit a man with glasses; hit him with a baseball bat. % Never say "Oops" in an operating room. % Never settle with words what you can accomplish with a flame thrower. % New members urgently required for SUICIDE CLUB, Watford area. -- Monty Python's Big Red Book % NEWSFLASH!! Rodney Fenster looked up the shaft of elevator number four at 1700 N. 17th St. this morning to see if the elevator was on its way down. It was. Age 31. % No doubt Jack the Ripper excused himself on the grounds that it was human nature. % Note to myself: use real bullets next time. % ... Now you're ready for the actual shopping. Your goal should be to get it over with as quickly as possible, because the longer you stay in the mall, the longer your children will have to listen to holiday songs on the mall public-address system, and many of these songs can damage children emotionally. For example: "Frosty the Snowman" is about a snowman who befriends some children, plays with them until they learn to love him, then melts. And "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" is about a young reindeer who, because of a physical deformity, is treated as an outcast by the other reindeer. Then along comes good, old Santa. Does he ignore the deformity? Does he look past Rudolph's nose and respect Rudolph for the sensitive reindeer he is underneath? No. Santa asks Rudolph to guide his sleigh, as if Rudolph were nothing more than some kind of headlight with legs and a tail. So unless you want your children exposed to this kind of insensitivity, you should shop quickly. -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide" % Nuke the gay, unborn, baby whales for Jesus. % Nuke the unborn gay female whales for Jesus. % Nuke them till they glow, then shoot them in the dark. % On his way back from work, a driver came upon a horrible wreck in which one car looked exactly like his neighbor's. Stopping hurriedly on the side of the road, he ran toward the smoldering debris. "Listen, mister," a policeman said, holding him back, "I can't let you come any closer." "But that may be my friend, Henry, in there," the anguished man explained. "OK, but it's pretty grisly," the cop cautioned. "There was a decapitation." The policeman reached into the back seat of the demolished car and pulled forth the head, holding it at arm's length. "Is this your friend?" "That's not him -- thank heavens," the man said. "Henry's much taller." % On the occasion of Nero's 25th birthday, he arrived at the Colosseum to find that the Praetorian Guard had prepared a treat for him in the arena. There stood 25 naked virgins, like candles on a cake, tied to poles, burning alive. "Wonderful!" exclaimed the deranged emperor, "but one of them isn't dead yet. I can see her lips moving. Go quickly and find out what she is saying." The centurion saluted, and hurried out to the virgin, getting as near the flames as he dared, and listened intently. Then he turned and ran back to the imperial box. "She is not talking," he reported to Nero, "she is singing." "Singing?" said the astounded emperor. "Singing what?" "Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you..." % Once again we find ourselves enmeshed in The Holiday Season, that very special time of year when we join with our loved ones in sharing centuries-old traditions such as trying to find a parking space at the mall. We traditionally do this in my family by driving around the parking lot until we see a shopper emerge from the mall. Then we follow her, in very much the same spirit as the Three Wise Men, who, 2,000 years ago, followed a star, week after week, until it led them to a parking space. We try to keep our bumper about 4 inches from the shopper's calves, to let the other circling cars know that she belongs to us. Sometimes, two cars will get into a fight over whom the shopper belongs to, similar to the way great white sharks will fight over who gets to eat a snorkeler. So, we follow our shopper closely, hunched over the steering wheel, whistling "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas" through our teeth, until we arrive at her car, which is usually parked several time zones away from the mall. Sometimes our shopper tries to indicate she was merely planning to drop off some packages and go back to shopping. But, when she hears our engine rev in a festive fashion and sees the holiday gleam in our eyes, she realizes she would never make it. -- Dave Barry, "Holiday Joy -- Or, the Great Parking Lot Skirmish" % Once upon a time, there was a fisherman who lived by a great river. One day, after a hard day's fishing, he hooked what seemed to him to be the biggest, strongest fish he had ever caught. He fought with it for hours, until, finally, he managed to bring it to the surface. Looking of the edge of the boat, he saw the head of this huge fish breaking the surface. Smiling with pride, he reached over the edge to pull the fish up. Unfortunately, he accidently caught his watch on the edge, and, before he knew it, there was a snap, and his watch tumbled into the water next to the fish with a loud "sploosh!" Distracted by this shiny object, the fish made a sudden lunge, simultaneously snapping the line, and swallowing the watch. Sadly, the fisherman stared into the water, and then began the slow trip back home. Many years later, the fisherman, now an old man, was working in a boring assembly-line job in a large city. He worked in a fish-processing plant. It was his job, as each fish passed under his hands, to chop off their heads, readying them for the next phase in processing. This monotonous task went on for years, the dull *thud* of the cleaver chopping of each head being his entire world, day after day, week after weary week. Well, one day, as he was chopping fish, he happened to notice that the fish coming towards him on the line looked very familiar. Yes, yes, it looked... could it be the fish he had lost on that day so many years ago? He trembled with anticipation as his cleaver came down. IT STRUCK SOMETHING HARD! IT WAS HIS THUMB! % Once upon a time, there were five blind men who had the opportunity to experience an elephant for the first time. One approached the elephant, and, upon encountering one of its sturdy legs, stated, "Ah, an elephant is like a tree." The second, after exploring the trunk, said, "No, an elephant is like a strong hose." The third, grasping the tail, said "Fool! An elephant is like a rope!" The fourth, holding an ear, stated, "No, more like a fan." And the fifth, leaning against the animal's side, said, "An elephant is like a wall." The five then began to argue loudly about who had the more accurate perception of the elephant. The elephant, tiring of all this abuse, suddenly reared up and attacked the men. He continued to trample them until they were nothing but bloody lumps of flesh. Then, strolling away, the elephant remarked, "It just goes to show that you can't depend on first impressions. When I first saw them I didn't think they they'd be any fun at all." % One must have a heart of stone to read the death of Little Nell by Dickens without laughing. -- Oscar Wilde % ONE THING KIDS LIKE is to be tricked. For instance, I was going to take my little nephew to Disneyland, but instead I drove him to a burned-out warehouse. "Oh, oh," I said. "Disneyland burned down." He cried and cried, but I think that deep down he thought it was a pretty good joke. I started to drive over to the real Disneyland, but it was getting pretty late. -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. % Only way to open lips of pigeon: sledgehammer. % Orcs really aren't so bad (if you use lots of catsup). % Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play? % "Perhaps he is not honest," Mr. Frostee said inside Cobb's head, sounding a bit worried. "Of course he isn't," Cobb answered. "What we have to look out for is him calling the cops anyway, or trying to blackmail us for more money." "I think you should kill him and eat his brain," Mr. Frostee said quickly. "That's not the answer to *every* problem in interpersonal relations," Cobb said, hopping out. -- Rudy Rucker, "Software" % Pipo was born with few complications, but then the doctor accidently dropped the infant on her head provoking her drunken father to drag the physician outside where he would beat him to death with a live ocelot. -- Love and Rockets % Please do not look directly into laser with remaining eye. % PPRB -- Pillage, plunder, rape and burn. % Psychics will soon lead dogs to your body. % Readers Ask: Is it possible to kill a vampire with a gun? Vampires are a source of great irritation to the average homeowner and it is usually to one's advantage to remove these pests as rapidly as possible. If a professional exterminater specializing in the undead is unavailable, it is possible to handle the situation with common household items. However, much of the common folklore of vanquishing the undead needs clarifying. First, driving a sharpened Louisville Slugger through a vampire's heart will NOT kill it. Since it's not quite alive, why would the heart be any different than puncturing it in the, for example, left buttock? Stake driving should be avoided at any cost since its effect will be to terribly annoy the vampire, and the last thing you want on your hands is an irate Lord of Darkness. Handguns are also a definite no-no. Common sense indicates that it requires more to defeat an incarnation of evil than hurling lumps of lead or silver through its body. One time-honored method is to expose the vampire to the sun, sever its head (any power saw should be sufficient), fill its mouth with holy wafers (vanilla wafers over which the Lord's prayer has been read will do in a pinch), immerse the head in an urn filled with holy water, place the urn in consecrated lands and bury the rest of the body underneath a crossroad (i.e. the intersection of Broad & Chestnut). Sure, it's a lot of work. But you'll never have to worry about those damn bats pestering the neighbors again. % Remember kids, if there's a loaded gun in the room, be sure that you're the one holding it. -- Mr. Greenfatigues % Safety Tips for the Post-Nuclear Existence Tip #1: How to tell when you are dead. (1) Little things start bothering you: little things like worms, bugs, ants. (2) Something is missing in your personal relationships. (3) Your dog becomes overly affectionate. (4) You have a hard time getting a waiter. (5) Exotic birds flock around you. (6) People ignore you at parties. (7) You have a hard time getting up in the morning. (8) You no longer get off on cocaine. % Safety Tips for the Post-Nuclear Existence (1) Never use an elevator in a building that has been hit by a nuclear bomb; use the stairs. (2) When you're flying through the air, remember to roll when you hit the ground. (3) If you're on fire, avoid gasoline and other flammable materials. (4) Don't attempt communication with dead people; it will only lead to psychological problems. (5) Food will be scarce; you will have to scavenge. Learn to recognize foods that will be available after the bomb: mashed potatoes, shredded wheat, tossed salad, ground beef, etc. (6) Put your hand over your mouth when you sneeze; internal organs will be scarce in the post-nuclear age. (7) Try to be neat; fall only in designated piles. (8) Drive carefully in "Heavy Fallout" areas; people could be staggering illegally. (9) Nutritionally, hundred dollar bills are equal to ones, but more sanitary due to limited circulation. (10) Accumulate mannequins now; spare parts will be in short supply on D-Day. % Sam went to his psychiatrist complaining of a hatred for elephants. "I can't stand elephants," he explained. "I lie awake nights despising them. The thought of an elephant fills me with loathing." "Sam," said the psychiatrist, "there's only one thing for you to do. Go to Africa, organize a safari, find an elephant in the jungle and shoot it. That way you'll get it out of your system." Sam immediately made arrangements for a safari hunt in Africa, inviting his best friend to join him. They arrived in Nairobi and lost no time getting out on the jungle trails. After they had been hunting for several days, Sam's best friend grabbed him by the arm one morning and yelled at him: "Sam, Sam, Sam! Over there behind that tree there's and elephant! Sam -- Get your gun -- no, no, not THAT gun -- the rifle with the longer barrel! Now aim it! QUICK! SAM! QUICK! No! Not that way -- this way! Be sure you don't jerk the trigger! Wait SAM! Don't let him see you! Aim at his head!" Sam whirled around, took aim, and killed his friend. He was put in prison and his psychiatrist flew to Africa to visit him. "I sent you over here to kill and elephant and instead you shoot your best friend," the psychiatrist said. "Why?" "Well," Sam replied, "there's only one thing in the world that I hate more than elephants and that is a loudmouth know-it-all!" % Save the whales. Club a seal instead. % Scene: A small boy stands agasp on the stairway overlooking the living room. A rather largish man in a big red suit with white fur and red and white belled cap hunches over the fireplace, obviously interrupted in filling stockings with packages taken from a huge bag slung over his shoulder. His eyebrows are raised, matter-of-factly, as he spies the boy intently watching him. Caption: "I'm sorry you've seen me, Billy. Now I'll have to kill you. % Seeing a commotion in Harvard Square, a man strolled over and asked what was going on. One of the onlookers explained to him that there was a Mooney who had immersed himself in gasoline and was threatening to set fire to himself to demonstrate his committment to the Rev. Moon. The man gasped and asked what was being done to defuse the obviously dangerous situation. "Well", replied the onlooker, "we're taking up a collection -- so far I've got two Bics, four Zippos and eighteen books of matches." % Seems like this guy wanders into a rural outfitting store in Alaska, and starts talking to a rather grizzled old man sitting by the cash register. "Hear ya got a lotta' bears 'round here?" "Yeah, you could say that," answers the old man. "GRIZZLIES?!?!" "A few." "Got any bear bells?" "What's that?" "You know, them little dingle-bells ya put on yer backpack so bears know yer there so's they can run away ... I'll take one fer black bears, and one fer them grizzlies. Say, how do you know yer in grizzly country, anyhow?" "Look fer scatt. Grizzly scatt's different from black bear scatt." "Well now, what's IN grizzly scatt that's different?" "Bear bells." % Silly Sally was baby sitting. But Silly Sally was getting bored. Thinking a walk would help, she put the baby in his carriage. Silly Sally pushed the carriage and pushed the carriage up this hill and down that one. She pushed the carriage up the highest hill in town, and ALL OF A SUDDEN! It slipped out of her hands (OH! NO!) and it was headed at high speed for the busiest intersection in town. BUT! Silly Sally just laughed and la.....ug.......h....e....d........... BECAUSE! SHE KNEW THERE WAS A STOP SIGN AT THE BOTTOM OF THE HILL! % Silly Sally was playing in the garage. And she was being disobedient. She was playing with matches... AND... She burned down the garage. (OHHHHHH) Silly Sally's mother said, "Silly Sally! You have been naughty! And when your father gets home, you are going to get a good licking!" BUT! Silly Sally just laughed and la.....ug.......h....e....d........... BECAUSE! SHE KNEW HER FATHER WAS IN THE GARAGE WHEN SHE BURNED IT DOWN! % ... 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. -- Dave Barry, "The Wonders of Sharks on TV" % Some people call them "cars" or "trucks;" I call them "dimensional transmogrifiers" because they change three-dimensional cats into two-dimensional ones. -- F. Frederick Skitty % Sometimes it happens. People just explode. Natural causes. -- Repo Man % Support mental health or I'LL KILL YOU!!!! % Support the American Kidney Foundation. Don't wear your motorcycle helmet. % Thanksgiving Day. Let all give humble, hearty, and sincere thanks, now, but the turkeys. In the island of Fiji they do not use turkeys; they use plumbers. It does not become you and me to sneer at Fiji. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" % -- THE BATES MOTEL -- ... convenient ... clean ... cozy Norman, knock loudly, I'm in the shower. M. % The first Great Steward, Parrafin the Climber, was employed in King Chloroplast's kitchen as second scullery boy when the old King met a tragic death. He apparently fell backward by accident on a dozen salad forks. Simultaneously the true heir, his son Carotene, mysteriously fled the city, complaining of some sort of plot and a lot of threatening notes left on his breakfast tray. At the time, this looked suspicious what with his father's death, and Carotene was suspected of foul play. Then the rest of the King's relatives began to drop dead one after the other in an odd fashion. Some were found strangled with dishrags and some succumbed to food poisoning. A few were found drowned in the soup vats, and one was attacked by assailants unknown and beaten to death with a pot roast. At least three appear to have thrown themselves backward on salad forks, perhaps in a noble gesture of grief over the King's untimely end. Finally there was no one left in Minas Troney who was either eligible or willing to wear the accursed crown, and the rule of Twodor was up for grabs. The scullery slave Parrafin bravely accepted the Stewardship of Twodor until that day when a lineal descendant of Carotene's returns to reclaim his rightful throne, conquer Twodor's enemies, and revamp the postal system. -- Bored of the Rings, "Harvard Lampoon" % The first guy that rats gets a belly-full of slugs in the head. Understand? -- Joey Glimco, trade unionist % The foreman of a lumber camp put a new workman on the circular saw. As he turned away, he heard the man say, "Ouch!". "What happened?" "Dunno," replied the man. "I just stuck out my hand like this, and -- well, I'll be damned. There goes another one!" % The Fortune Travel Agency offers a special... Vacation in Hell! -- Grace Kelly drives you to the airport. -- Thurman Munson flies you to a remote tropical island. -- Ted Kennedy's your chauffeur on the island. -- You go yachting with Natalie Wood. -- You have drinks with William Holden. -- And Roman Polanski stays at home and watches your kids. % The greatest joy a man can know is to conquer his enemies and drive them before him. To ride their horses and take away their possessions. To see the faces of those who were dear to them bedewed with tears, and to clasp their wives and daughters to his arms. -- Genghis Khan % "The hell with the prime directive! Let's kill something!" % The honeymooning couple agreed it was a fine day for horseback riding. After a mile or so, the bride's mount cantered under a low tree and a branch scraped her forehead lightly. The groom dismounted, glared at his wife's horse, and said, "That's number one." The ride then proceeded. After another mile or so, the bride's horse stumbled over a pebble and the lady suffered a slight jostling. Again, her man leapt from his saddle and strode over to the nervous animal. "That's two," he said. Five miles later, the bride's horse became frightened when a rabbit crossed its path, reared up and threw the girl. Immediately, the groom was off his horse. "That's three!", he shouted, and, pulling out a pistol, he shot the horse between the eyes. "You brute!" shrieked his bride. "Now I see the kind of man I married! You're a sadist, that's what!" The groom turned to her coolly. "That's one," he said. % The human race has been fascinated by sharks for as long as I can remember. Just like the bluebird feeding its young, or the spider struggling to weave its perfect web, or the buttercup blooming in spring, the shark reveals to us yet another of the infinite and wonderful facets of nature, namely the facet that it can bite your head off. This causes us humans to feel a certain degree of awe. -- Dave Barry, "The Wonders of Sharks on TV" % The Least Successful Animal Rescue The firemen's strike of 1978 made possible one of the great animal rescue attempts of all time. Valiantly, the British Army had taken over emergency firefighting and on 14 January they were called out by an elderly lady in South London to retrieve her cat which had become trapped up a tree. They arrived with impressive haste and soon discharged their duty. So grateful was the lady that she invited them all in for tea. Driving off later, with fond farewells completed, they ran over the cat and killed it. -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" % The man standing at the bar (in court, unfortunately) was well-dressed, alert and obviously intelligent. The judge asked him how he pleaded to the charge of rape and, much to the magistrate's surprise, he replied, "Not guilty by reason of insanity, your Honor." "Insanity?" exclaimed the judge. "Yes, sir," said the defendant. "I'm just crazy about it." % The most winning woman I ever knew was hanged for poisoning three little children for their insurance money. -- Sherlock Holmes % The people of Halifax invented the trampoline. During the Victorian period the tripe-dressers of Halifax stretched tripe across a large wooden frame and jumped up and down on it to `tender and dress' it. The tripoline, as they called it, degenerated into becoming the apparatus for a spectator sport. The people of Halifax also invented the harmonium, a device for castrating pigs during Sunday service. -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" % The Psblurtex is an 18-inch long anaconda that hides in the gentlemen's outfitting departments of Amazonian stores and is often bought by mistake since its colors are those of the London Reform Club. Once tied around its victim's neck, it strangles him gently and then claims the insurance before running off to Germany where it lives in hiding. -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" % The Schwine-Kitzenger Institute study of 47 men over the age of 100 showed that all had these things in common: (1) They all had moderate appetites. (2) They all came from middle class homes (3) All but two of them were dead. % The Snack "Oh my God," screamed Mommy, "You went and ate the Baby." "What baby?" asked Daddy. "You know that's just the last of the leftover donkey." "Donkey, my ass!" said Mommy with some sentience. "Do you think I don't recognize my own baby? Why I can still see his little privates caught in the gap between your front teeth. How many times have I told you to take only what's on the *top* two shelves of the freezer?" "But there wasn't a thing to eat," cried Daddy. "And am I not the master of my own?" "Nothing to eat? What about the elephant testicles in aspic that I put up for you just last week in the ball jar? Our very first baby, too," wailed Mommy, "that I was saving for Christmas dinner." "Testicles, testicles," said Daddy. "A man gets tired of testicles." -- L.L. Zeiger % The sooner all the animals are dead, the sooner we'll find their money. -- Ed Bluestone, The National Lampoon % The Truth Shall Rape You Over. -- Caltech % The Worst Homing Pigeon This historic bird was released in Pembrokeshire in June 1953 and was expected to reach its base that evening. It was returned by post, dead, in a cardboard box eleven years later from Brazil. -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" % Then there's the atmosphere -- half the time you can eat the air, it's got so much stuff floating around in it. It takes the edge out of the colors. Down here even the traffic lights are pastel. And people! With a lot of these folks you'd have to check their green cards just to make sure that they are Earthlings. Then there's the police. In Portland, when some guy goes bananas, the cops rope off a sixteen block area around him and call a shrink from the medical school who stands atop a patrol car with a megaphone and shouts, "OK! THIS! ALL! STARTED! WHEN! YOU! WERE! THREE! YEARS! OLD! ON! ACCOUNT! OF! YOUR MOTHER! RIGHT? SO! LET'S! TALK! ABOUT! IT!" Down here they don't waste that kind of time. The LAPD has SWAT teams composed of guys who make Darth Vader look like Mr. Peepers. Before they go to bust a bookie joint they mortar it first. -- M. Christensen, "A Portland Innocent in LA" % There appears before you a threatening figure clad all over in heavy black armor. His legs seem like the massive trunk of the oak tree. His broad shoulders and helmeted head loom high over your own puny frame and you realize that his powerful arms could easily crush the very life from your body. There hangs from his belt a veritable arsenal of deadly weapons: sword, mace, ball and chain, dagger, lance, and trident. He speaks with a commanding voice: "YOU SHALL NOT PASS" As he grabs you by the neck all grows dim about you. % There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy ... -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % There are very few personal problems that cannot be solved through a suitable application of high explosives. % There is this trouble about special providences--namely, there is so often a doubt as to which party was intended to be the beneficiary. In the case of the children, the bears and the prophet, the bears got more real satisfaction out of the episode than the prophet did, because they got the children. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" % There once was a king who ruled his country long, wisely, and well. The king had a son whom he hoped would someday rule the land. He also wished in his heart that the son ould be wise and compassionate. One day he said to the prince: "If you promised that you would give a certain woman anything, even half of your kingdom, and then she demanded the life of your best friend, what would your decision be, my son?" The young prince thought for a moment and then said, "I would tell her that she was my best friend, and cut her head off." The king knew that his son would be a great king. % There was a knock on the door. Mrs. Miffin opened it. "Are you the Widow Miffin?" a small boy asked. "I'm Mrs. Miffin," she replied, "but I'm not a widow." "Oh, no?" replied the little boy. "Wait 'til you see what they're carrying upstairs!" % There was a man who enjoyed playing golf, and could occasionallly put up with taking in a round with his wife. One time (with his wife along) he was having an extremely bad round. On the 12th hole, he sliced a drive over by a grounds-keepers' shack. Although he did not have a clear shot to the green, his wife noticed that there were two doors on the shack, and there was a possibility that, if both doors were opened, he might be able to hit through. Without hesitation, he instructed his wife to go around to the other side and open the far door. Sure enough, this gave him a clear path to the green. He stepped up to his ball and prepared to hit. His wife had been standing by the far door waiting for him to hit through. After a moment, she became curious and stuck her head in the doorway, to see what he was doing. At that exact moment, the husband cracked a three-wood that hit his wife square on the forehead, killing her instantly. A few weeks later, the man was playing a round at the same course, this time with a friend of his. Once again on the 12th hole, he sliced his drive to the shack. His friend suggested that he might be able to hit through, if he was to open both doors. "Nah", replied the man, "Last time I did that I took a 7". % They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist... -- Civil War General John Sedgwick, his last words Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, 1864 % "They spend years searching for their natural parents, convinced their parents will be happy to see them. I mean, really, can you imagine someone being happy to see an orphan? Nobody wants them... that's why they're orphans!" The speaker is Anne Baker, founder and guiding force behind Orphan-Off, an organization dedicated to keeping orphans confused about the whereabouts of their natural parents. She is a woman with a mission: "Basically, what we do is band together to exchange information about which orphans are looking for which parents in what part of the country. We're completely computerized. "The idea is to throw the orphans as many red herrings and false leads as possible. We'll tell some twenty-three-year-old loser that his real parents can be found at a certain address on the other side of the country. Well, by the time the kid shows up, the family is prepared. They look over the kid's photos and information and they say, 'Oh, the Emersons... yeah, they used to live here... I think they moved out about five years ago. I think they went to Iowa, or maybe Idaho.' "Bam, the door shuts in the kid's face and he's back to zero again. He's got nothing to go on but the orphan's pathetic determination to continue. "It's really amazing how much these kids will put up with. Last year we even sent one kid all the way to Australia. I mean, really. Besides, if your natural parents were Australian, would you want to meet them?" -- "National Lampoon", September, 1984 % They Tore Out My Heart and Stomped That Sucker Flat -- Book title by Lewis Grizzard % They're an insidious bunch, your killer pianos. Had one get loose on me back in '62. It slipped out of the cables while we were lowering it out of its twelfth story apartment, and crushed six innocents in an insane bid for freedom. -- Stig's Inferno % This guy is walking down the beach one fine sunny day, feeling good, when suddenly he sees this woman with no arms or legs in a wheelchair, sobbing like crazy. He decides to be gallant, "What's wrong, miss?" "I......I'm 21 and I I've never been kissed... " So this guy, he decides, what the hell, let's cheer up the poor lady. He leans over and gives her a long wonderful kiss. This does wonders, and the woman's face lights up and she grins from ear to ear, and the guy wanders away feeling wonderful. Well, next week, the same guy is walking along the same beach, and sees the same girl who is once again sobbing her eyes out. Gallant to the end, our hero says, "What's wrong, miss, can I help?" "I...I'm 21 and I've never been fucked..." The guy picks her up out of her chair, cuddles her close, and brings her over to the shore, and throws her into the water. "Now you're fucked!" % ... this is an awesome sight. The entire rebel resistance buried under six million hardbound copies of "The Naked Lunch." -- The Firesign Theater % This is supposed to be a 'appy occasion. Let's not BICKER and ARGUE over 'oo killed 'oo! -- Monty Python and the Holy Grail % This one is for all you military types. For those who don't know, Rangers are *extremely* well trained members of the U.S. Army. Marines are people who start out as normal soldiers and then are made to believe that bullets don't actually hurt. One day a platoon of Marines are on patrol when they come upon a Ranger relaxing on top of a small hill. The Ranger puts his hands on his hips and screams out, "Do any of you seaweed sucking jarheads think you're man enough to take me on?" The biggest Marine comes running up the hill, screaming back at the Ranger. When he gets to the top he simply plows into his foe and the two tumble down the other side of the hill, out of sight. There is the sound of a horrendous fight for a moment or two, and then all is quiet. Soon, the Ranger reappears, quite untouched. He puts his hands on his hips and sneers, "Well, looks to me like one of you couldn't do it, how about the rest?" The enraged Marine platoon leader sends his entire platoon (30+men) charging after the Ranger. They all go tumbling down the far side of the hill. After 15 minutes of screaming and yelling and cursing a lone, bloodied Marine crawls over the top of the hill. The platoon leader yells up to his man, "What's going on up there?" The wounded Marine, with his last bit of breath, replies, "Sir, it's a... a trap, sir. There're two of them!" % This yuppie, see, was in a car wreck. His BMW was mangled, and so was he. The paramedic was leaning over him getting his vitals, and all the yup could groan was "My BMW! My BMW!" The paramedic tried to quiet the man, pointing out that his car wasn't his chief concern at the moment, especially as he'd been rearranged pretty badly himself -- for example, his left arm was severed at the elbow and was lying about twenty feet away. There was a moment of stunned silence from the yup followed by "Oh no! My Rolex! My Rolex!" % TO ME, CLOWNS AREN'T FUNNY. In fact, they're kinda scary. I've wondered where this started, and I think it goes back to the time I went to the circus and a clown killed my dad. -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. % Two pirates are sitting in a seaside tavern, talking. One of them has a hook instead of a hand, and an eye patch. The other pirate has a wooden leg. Over a few beers, they start to tell each other how they received their injuries. "One day," says the first pirate, "we had pulled alongside a merchant vessel and were boarding her. I had my sword drawn when suddenly a man with a saber caught me by surprise and cut my hand off. So I had this hook put on. How did you lose your leg?" "From a broadside of grapeshot from an English military vessel, in a terrific battle off the coast of France. And how about your eye?" "Well, I don't really like to talk about it," said the first pirate. "Come on," says the second pirate. "It doesn't matter after all these years, does it?" "Oh, okay," says the first pirate. "See, it's pretty embarrassing; a seagull shit in my eye." "A seagull!? I can see how that would hurt, but I don't see why you would *lose* the eye..." "But," the first pirate says, "it was my first day with the hook." % Two recent emigrants to the United States, on their first day off the boat in New York City, spied a hotdog vendor. "Do they eat dogs in America?" one asked his companion. "I don't know." "Well, if we're going to live in America, we have to learn to eat American foods." So they each bought a wax paper wrapped hotdog and sat down to eat them on a nearby park bench. One man looked inside his wax paper, then over at the other man, and asked, "So, what part did you get?" % Unbearably lovely music is heard as the curtain rises, and we see the woods on a summer afternoon. A fawn dances on and nibbles at some leaves. He drifts lazily through the soft foliage. Soon he starts coughing and drops dead. -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers" % Upon reading a story about a man who throttled his mother-in-law, a man commented, "Sounds to me like a practical choker." % Warning: Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be shot again. % We are simple killers of people and destroyers of property. % We found on St. Paul's only two kinds of birds -- the booby and the noddy... Both are of a tame and stupid disposition, and are so unaccustomed to visitors, that I could have killed any number of them with my geological hammer. -- Charles Darwin % "We had it tough ... I had to get up at 9 o'clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, eat a lump of dry poison, work 29 hours down mill, and when we came home our Dad would kill us, and dance about on our grave singing Halelleuia ..." -- Monty Python % We ought to be very grateful that we have tools. Millions of years ago people did not have them, and home projects were extremely difficult. For example, when a primitive person wanted to put up paneling, he had to drive the little paneling nails into the cave wall with his bare fist, so generally the paneling wound up getting spattered with primitive blood, which isn't really all that bad when you consider how ugly paneling is to begin with. -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw" % We're deep into the holiday gift-giving season, as you can tell from the fact that everywhere you look, you see jolly old St. Nick urging you to purchase things, to the point where you want to slug him right in his bowl full of jelly. -- Dave Barry, "Simple, Homespun Gifts" % "We've decided to have the budgie put down." "Oh, is he very old then?" "No, we just don't like him." "Oh. How do they put budgies down anyway?" "Well, it's funny you should be asking that, as I've been reading a great big book called `How to put your budgie down'. And as I understand it, you can either hit them over the head with the book, or shoot them there, just above the beak." "Mrs. Conkers flushed hers down the loo." "Oh, you don't want to do that, because they breed in the sewers and pretty soon you get huge evil smelling flocks of soiled budgies flying out of people's lavatories infringing their personal freedoms." -- Monty Python % Welcome thy neighbor into thy fallout shelter. He'll come in handy if you run out of food. -- Dean McLaughlin. % "Well, it's a little rough... it might not be necessary to drag him 40 blocks. Maybe just four. You could put him in the trunk for the first 36 blocks, then haul him out and drag him the last four; that would certainly scare the piss out of him, bumping alone the street, feeling all his skin being ripped off..." "He'd be a bloody mess. They might think he was just some drunk and let him lie there all night." "Don't worry about that. They have a guard station in front of the White House that's open 24 hours a day. The guards would recognize Colson... and by that time of course his wife would have called the cops and reported that a bunch of thugs had kidnapped him." "Wouldn't it be a little kinder if you drove about four more blocks and stopped at a phone box to ring the hospital and say, 'Would you mind going around to the front of the White House? There's a naked man lying outside in the street, bleeding to death...'" "... and we think it's Mr. Colson." "It would be quite a story for the newspapers, wouldn't it?" "Yeah, I think it's safe to say we'd see some headlines on that one." -- Hunter Thompson, talking to R. Steadman on C. Colson, ex-Marine captain, now born again, of Watergate fame. % "Well, well, well! Well if it isn't fat stinking billy goat Billy Boy in poison! How art thou, thou globby bottle of cheap stinking chip oil? Come and get one in the yarbles, if ya have any yarbles, ya eunuch jelly thou!" -- Alex in "Clockwork Orange" % What happens if a big asteroid hits Earth? Judging from realistic simulations involving a sledge hammer and a common laboratory frog, we can assume it will be pretty bad. -- Dave Barry % What is this line of duty, and suffering? You are not supposed to suffer if you are an assassin. The other person is supposed to suffer. -- Chiun, glory of the name of Sinanju, teacher of the youth from outside Sinanju named Remo. % What you mean, how old am I? About one hundred! But Viennese answer is better: we say, "I keep passing the open windows." This is an old joke. There was a street clown called King of the Mice: he trained rodents, he did horoscopes, he could impersonate Napoleon, he could make dogs fart on command. One night he jumped out his window with all his pets in a box. Written on the box was this: "Life is serious, but art is fun!" I hear his funeral was a party. A street artist had killed himself. Nobody had supported him but now everybody missed him. Now who would make the dogs make music and the mice pant? The bear knows this, too: it is hard work and great art to make life not so serious. -- John Irving "The Hotel New Hampshire" % When arguments fail, use a blackjack. -- Edward "Spike" O'Donnell, Al Capone associate. % When I kill, the only thing I feel is recoil. % When I was a child... We had a quick-sand box in the backyard... I was an only child... eventually. -- Steven Wright % When I was a kid I said to my father one afternoon, "Daddy, will you take me to the zoo?" He answered, "If the zoo wants you let them come and get you." -- Jerry Lewis % When I was a kid my favorite relative was Uncle Caveman. After school we'd all go play in his cave, and every once in a while he would eat one of us. It wasn't until later that I found out that Uncle Caveman was a bear. -- Jack Handley % When I was eight years old I came home with tears in my eyes because some kids had stolen my samwich. My father handed me an ice pick, and said, "Next time, hit 'em first and hit 'em hard." -- Jake LaMotta % When I was seven years old, I was once reprimanded by my mother for an act of collective brutality in which I had been involved at school. A group of seven-year-olds had been teasing and tormenting a six-year-old. "It is always so," my mother said. "You do things together which not one of you would think of doing alone." ... Wherever one looks in the world of human organization, collective responsibility brings a lowering of moral standards. The military establishment is an extreme case, an organization which seems to have been expressly designed to make it possible for people to do things together which nobody in his right mind would do alone. -- Freeman Dyson, "Weapons and Hope" % When President Paul Doumer of France was assassinated in Paris in 1932, newspapers differed in their versions of the event. This is from "Paris was Yesterday: 1925-1939" by Janet Flanner, edited by Irving Drutman. Taste varied as to his cry when he was shot down, the more popular papers preferring his despairing "Oh, la la!," the graver dailies favoring "Is it possible?" What few reported were his dying words: "But what kind of chauffeur was it?" Having been told by his aides not that he had been shot but that he had been struck by a taxi, the President spent the last conscious moments of his life wondering how how an automobile got into the charity book sale at the Maison Rothschild, where his assassination occurred. % When the Ngdanga tribe of West Africa hold their moon love ceremonies, the men of the tribe bang their heads on sacred trees until they get a nose bleed, which usually cures them of ____that. -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" % When the usher noticed a man stretched across three seats in a movie theatre, he walked over and whispered, "I'm sorry, sir, but you're allowed only a single seat." The man moaned, but did not budge. "Sir," the user said more loudly, "if you don't move, I'll have to call a manager." The man moaned again but stayed where he was. The usher left, and returned with the manager, who, after several more attempts at dislodging the fellow, called the police. The cop took a look at the reclining man and said, "All right, boyo, what's your name?" "Samuel," he mumbled. "And where're you from, Sam?" "The balcony." % When you have shot and killed a man you have in some measure clarified your attitude toward him. You have given a definite answer to a definite problem. For better or worse you have acted decisively. In a way, the next move is up to him. -- R. A. Lafferty % WHEN YOU'RE RIDING IN A TIME MACHINE way far into the future, don't stick your elbow out the window or it'll turn into a fossil. -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. % When you've seen one nuclear war, you've seen them all. % Whenever I see an old lady slip and fall on a wet sidewalk, my first instinct is to laugh. But then I think, what if I was an ant, and she fell on me. Then it wouldn't seem quite so funny. -- Jack Handley % Where there's a whip there's a way. % ... which reminds me of the Carrot family: Ma Carrot, Pa Carrot, and Baby Carrot. One fine spring day they decided to go out for a picnic. They all piled into their carrot-mobile and drive out to the country. But Pa Carrot wasn't watching where he was going and alas, he hit an oil slick and skidded right into a tree. Ma and Pa Carrot escaped with a few cuts and bruises, but poor Baby Carrot got broken in two. They frantically rushed him to the hospital and immediately the doctors started operating in a desperate attempt to save Baby Carrot's life. Ma and Pa Carrot were beside themselves with anxiety ... would poor little Baby Carrot make it? After hours of waiting the doctor finally emerges, bleary-eyed and barely able to walk. "Is he all right, is he all right?" Pa Carrot frantically stammers. "Well, I have some good news and some bad news," replies the doctor. Ma and Pa Carrot look at each other and blurt out, nearly in unison, "The good news first!" "All right, the good news is that Baby Carrot will live." "And the bad news? What's the bad news about our Baby Carrot?" The doctor puts his hand on Pa Carrot's shoulder and solemnly looks him in the eye. "Your son will live... but... he'll be a vegetable for the rest of his life." % Which would you rather have, a bursting planet or an earthquake here and there? -- John Joseph Lynch % Why does man kill? He kills for food. And not only food: frequently there must be a beverage. -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers" % Why don't elephants eat penguins ? Because they can't get the wrappers off ... % Wood is highly ecological, since trees are a renewable resource. If you cut down a tree, another will grow in its place. And if you cut down the new tree, still another will grow. And if you cut down that tree, yet another will grow, only this one will be a mutation with long, poisonous tentacles and revenge in its heart, and it will sit there in the forest, cackling and making elaborate plans for when you come back. Wood heat is not new. It dates back to a day millions of years ago, when a group of cavemen were sitting around, watching dinosaurs rot. Suddenly, lightning struck a nearby log and set it on fire. One of the cavemen stared at the fire for a few minutes, then said: "Hey! Wood heat!" The other cavemen, who did not understand English, immediately beat him to death with stones. But the key discovery had been made, and from that day forward, the cavemen had all the heat they needed, although their insurance rates went way up. -- Dave Barry, "Postpetroleum Guzzler" % Yeah, if it looks like a duck, and walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck -- shoot it. % You can imagine my embarrassment when I killed the wrong guy. -- Joe Valachi % You can't go into the ring and be a nice guy. I would go a month, two months, without having sex. It worked for me because it made me a vicious animal. You can't fight if you have any compassion or anything like that. -- Jake LaMotta % You can't say civilization don't advance... in every war they kill you a new way. -- Will Rogers % You know what I wish? I wish all the scum of the Earth had one throat and I had my hands about it. -- Rorschach, "Watchmen" % You should never ride in an airplane with a sports team, because if the plane goes down, it's you they're gonna eat! -- Gordon Downie, singer for Tragically Hip % Your home electrical system is basically a bunch of wires that bring electricity into your home and take if back out before it has a chance to kill you. This is called a "circuit". The most common home electrical problem is when the circuit is broken by a "circuit breaker"; this causes the electricity to back up in one of the wires until it bursts out of an outlet in the form of sparks, which can damage your carpet. The best way to avoid broken circuits is to change your fuses regularly. Another common problem is that the lights flicker. This sometimes means that your electrical system is inadequate, but more often it means that your home is possessed by demons, in which case you'll need to get a caulking gun and some caulking. If you're not sure whether your house is possessed, see "The Amityville Horror", a fine documentary film based on an actual book. Or call in a licensed electrician, who is trained to spot the signs of demonic possession, such as blood coming down the stairs, enormous cats on the dinette table, etc. -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw" % "Your son still sliding down the banisters?" "We wound barbed wire around them." "That stop him?" "No, but it sure slowed him up." %