World’s fastest car

One day, an extremely rich business man decides that the time has come to indulge himself. He has been working hard and making money all his life, and he rarely spends any of it on himself. So he goes out and buys the world’s fastest commercial vehicle: the all-custom 2001 Chevrolet Zoom. This puppy can hit 350 mph on a straightaway and has all the trimmings. Leather, CD, Sunroof, teryx exhaust, GPS, everything. It cost him a cool million.

He decides to take it for an afternoon spin. He’s just cruising around town with one arm out the window, having the time of his life, when he gets to a red light. He pulls up next to an old guy on a little moped who is already waiting at the light.

“Now THAT’S a car,” the old guy says with awe. “What on earth did that cost you?”

“Three million,” the rich guy proclaimed. “And that was a steal. This here is the world’s fastest commercial vehicle.”

“You’re kidding!” the old guy scoffed. “How fast?”

“350.”

The old guy’s jaw dropped. “Hey, do you mind if I take a look around inside real quick?”

“Not at all,” the rich guy said.

The old guy leans way over and sticks his head in the window. After looking around for a few seconds, he sits back down on his moped. “That’s a fine car,” he said, nodding his head.

Just then, the stoplight turned to green, and the rich guy decided to show this old man what his car is really capable of. He floors it out of the intersection, and in a few seconds he is happily cruising along at 350 mph.

He happens to glance in his rearview mirror, and notices to his dismay a speck on the horizon that seems to be getting closer. Sure enough, the speck comes closer and closer until WHOOSH! it passes him. The rich guy just can’t figure out what’s going on here, so he pulls over. He sees the speck again on the horizon in front of him coming back towards him, and sure enough, WHOOSH! it passes him again. This time, though, he was prepared and got a better look at it. He could have sworn that he saw the old guy on the moped. “But that’s impossible,” he thought to himself.

Once again, the thing was coming back at the rear of his car, only this time it looked like it was going to hit. And hit it did. There was a loud crash as the thing slammed into the back of the Chevy Zoom.

The rich guy jumps out of the car and runs around to the back, where the old guy is dying on the road, pieces of his moped scattered around him.

“Oh, my God!” the rich guy said, horrified. “Is there anything I can do?”

“Yes,” the old man responded feebly. “Before I die, I want you to unhook my suspenders from your side mirror.”

Some quotes

Here are some quotes I came across in my surf around the Web

  • Ask not for whom the bell tolls, let the machine get it.
  • Procrastination means never having to say you’re sorry.
  • Being politically correct means always having to say you’re sorry.
  • On the other hand, the early worm gets eaten.
  • Virginity is like a balloon, one prick and it’s gone.
  • Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the show?
  • Trust in God, but lock your car.
  • Given a conflict, Murphy’s law supercedes Newton’s.
  • There are very few personal problems that cannot be solved through a suitable application of high explosive
  • I’m desperately trying to figure out why kamikaze pilots wore helmets.
  • I got food poisoning today. I don’t know when I’ll use it.
  • I took some baby shower gifts once. It left my skin baby soft.
  • A peanut saved is a peanut earned. A peanut shaved is a sterile man.
  • “Never eat more than you can lift!” — Miss Piggy

Some good ones eh?

Comrade Rudolph knows best

English Embankment in Saint Petersburg.
Image via Wikipedia

A Russian couple were walking down the street in St. Petersburg the other night, when the man felt a drop hit his nose. ‘I think it’s raining,’ he said to his wife.

‘No, that felt more like snow to me,’ she replied.

‘No, I’m sure it was just rain’ he said.

Well, as these things go, they were about to have an almighty argument about whether it was raining or snowing. Just then they saw a Communist party official walking toward them. ‘Let’s not fight about it,’ the man said, ‘let’s ask Comrade Rudolph whether it’s officially raining or snowing.’

As the official approached, the man said, ‘Tell us, Comrade Rudolph, is it officially raining or snowing?’

‘It’s raining, of course,’ he answered and walked on.

But the woman insisted: ‘I know that felt like snow!’

To which the man quietly replied: ‘Rudolph the Red knows rain, dear!’

Double positives

A linguistics professor was lecturing to his class one day. “In English,” he said, “A double negative forms a positive. It’s a 2-factor case that is not always true however.”

“In some languages, “, he continued,”, such as Russian, a double negative is still a negative. However, there is no language wherein a double positive can form a negative.”

A voice from the back of the room piped up, ‘Yeah, right.’

Watching the boats go by

This technician’s company uses satellite communications …

… to send and receive messages from tugboats moving barges up and down major rivers. Each day, by 2 p.m., the tugboats send data on the day’s activities to the company’s traffic department.

At least that’s how it’s supposed to work.

“I got a call from our traffic department saying they only got data from about half the boats, and would I check on it?” technician says.

He calls the satellite communications company, but the technician there says there’s no problem on his end.

Meanwhile, the traffic department calls again — they’re still not getting messages from the missing boats.

“So I called the boats and got them to re-send the messages, and they came through,” says our tech. “The problem apparently cleared itself up.”

But he isn’t quite satisfied. “I called the satellite company back to see what happened, and what we could do if the problem recurred.”

Satellite company’s technician doesn’t know what happened and doesn’t have any way of finding out. “In order to track the messages, we would need an identification number from the message,” he tells our tech.

We could find out those numbers eventually, he figures.

“Also, the identification numbers are recycled every half hour,” tech continues.

“So I need to get you the identification number within that time?” he asks.

“Right”, says the satellite tech.

“So to summarize,” says our tech glumly, “we need to give you the identification numbers of the messages we haven’t received, within half an hour of not receiving them?”

Crazy!

As useful as a COBOL programmer

Jack was a COBOL programmer in the mid to late 1990s. After years of being taken for granted and treated as a technological dinosaur by all the Client/Server programmers, PC repair technicians and website developers, he was finally getting some respect. He’d become a private consultant specializing in Year 2000 conversions.

Several years of this relentless, mind-numbing work had taken its toll on Jack. He began having anxiety dreams about the Year 2000. All he could think about was how he could avoid the year 2000 and all that came with it.

Jack decided to contact a company that specialized in cryogenics. He made a deal to have himself frozen until March 15th, 2000. The next thing he would know is he’d wake up in the year 2000; after the New Year celebrations and computer debacles; after the leap day. Nothing else to worry about except getting on with his life.

He was put into his cryogenic receptacle, the technicians set the revive date, he was given injections to slow his heartbeat to a bare minimum, and that was that.

The next thing that Jack saw was an enormous and very modern room filled with excited people. They were all shouting “I can’t believe it!” and “It’s a miracle” and “He’s alive!”. There were cameras (unlike any he’d ever seen) and equipment that looked like it came out of a science fiction movie.

Someone who was obviously a spokesperson for the group stepped forward. Jack couldn’t contain his enthusiasm. “Is it over?” he asked. “Is the year 2000 already here? Are all the millennial parties and promotions and crises all over and done with?”

The spokesman explained that there had been a problem with the programming of the timer on Jack’s cryogenic receptacle, it hadn’t been year 2000 compliant. It was actually eight thousand years later, not the year 2000. Technology had advanced to such a degree that everyone had virtual reality interfaces which allowed them to contact anyone else on the planet.

“That sounds terrific,” said Jack. “But I’m curious. Why is everybody so interested in me?”

“Well,” said the spokesman. “The year 10000 is just around the corner, and it says in your files that you know COBOL”.

The Genesis of Computing

  • In the beginning God created the Bit and the Byte. And from those he created the Word.
  • And there were two Bytes in the Word; and nothing else existed. And God separated the One from the Zero; and he saw it was good.
  • And God said – Let the Data be; And so it happened. And God said – Let the Data go to their proper places. And he created floppy disks and hard disks and compact disks.
  • And God said – Let the computers be, so there would be a place to put floppy disks and hard disks and compact disks. Thus God created computers and called them hardware.
  • And there was no Software yet. But God created programs; small and big… And told them – Go and multiply yourselves and fill all the Memory.
  • And God said – I will create the Programmer; And the Programmer will make new programs and govern over the computers and programs and Data.
  • And God created the Programmer; and put him at Data Center; And God showed the Programmer the Catalog Tree and said You can use all the volumes and subvolumes and you may use data center automation but DO NOT USE Windows.
  • And God said – It is not Good for the programmer to be alone. He took a bone from the Programmer’s body and created a creature that would look up at the Programmer; and admire the Programmer; and love the things the Programmer does; And God called the creature: the User.
  • And the Programmer and the User were left under the naked DOS and it was Good.
  • But Bill was smarter than all the other creatures of God. And Bill said to the User – Did God really tell you not to run any programs?
  • And the User answered – God told us that we can use every program and every piece of Data but told us not to run Windows or we will die.
  • And Bill said to the User – How can you talk about something you did not even try. The moment you run Windows you will become equal to God. You will be able to create anything you like by a simple click of your mouse.
  • And the User saw that the fruits of the Windows were nicer and easier to use. And the User saw that any knowledge was useless – since Windows could replace it.
  • So the User installed the Windows on his computer; and said to the Programmer that it was good.
  • And the Programmer immediately started to look for new drivers. And God asked him – What are you looking for? And the Programmer answered – I am looking for new drivers because I can not find them in the DOS. And God said – Who told you need drivers? Did you run Windows? And the Programmer said – It was Bill who told us to !
  • And God said to Bill – Because of what you did you will be hated by all the creatures. And the User will always be unhappy with you. And you will always sell Windows.
  • And God said to the User – Because of what you did, the Windows will disappoint you and eat up all your Resources; and you will have to use lousy programs; and you will always rely on the Programmers help.
  • And God said to the Programmer – Because you listened to the User you will never be happy. All your programs will have errors and you will have to fix them and fix them to the end of time.
  • And God threw them out of the Data Center and locked the door and secured it with a password.
  • GENERAL PROTECTION FAULT

The secret to making a marriage work

A young bride and groom-to-be had just selected the wedding ring and picked a special one from a shop specialising in tungsten rings. As the girl admired the plain tungsten and diamond band, she suddenly looked concerned.

“Tell me,” she asked the elderly salesman, “is there anything special I’ll have to do to take care of this ring?”

With a fatherly smile, the salesman said, “One of the best ways to protect a wedding ring is to dip it in dishwater three times a day.”

A blonde diet

A blonde is terribly overweight, so her doctor puts her on a diet to see if he can give her diet supplements or something to help. Instead he comes up with this great plan:

“I want you to eat regularly for two days, then skip a day, and repeat this procedure for two weeks. The next time I see you, you’ll have lost at least five pounds.”

When the blonde returns, she’s lost nearly 20 pounds. “Why, that’s amazing!” the doctor says. “Did you follow my instruction The blonde nods. “I’ll tell you, though, I thought was going to drop dead that third day.”

“From hunger, you mean?” asked the doctor.

“No, from skipping.”

I love my office

I love my office and its location –
I hate to have to go on vacation.
I love office furniture, drab and gray,
and the paper that piles up every day!

I love my chair in my padded cell!
There’s nothing else I love so well.
I love to work among my peers –
I love their leers and jeers and sneers.

I love my computer and all its software;
I hug it often though it doesn’t care…
I love each program and every file,
I try to understand once in a while!!

I’m happy to be here, I am, I am;
I’m the happiest slave of my uncle Sam.
I love this work: I love these chores.
I love the meetings with deadly bores.

I love my Job – I’ll say it again –
I even love these friendly Men –
These men who’ve come to visit today
In lovely white coats to take me away!!!