GRAB BAG [06.18.07]
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JOKES:
Q. Whats long, hard and full of semen??
A. A submarine.
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A priest is teaching a nun how to swim and the nun says to the priest
"Will I really sink if you take your finger out?"
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Two nuns turn up at the fruit market and ask the veggie man for 120
cucumbers. The guy advises: "Sisters, if you buy 3 crates, that's 150,
you'll get a 25% discount !" The nuns look at each other, and after a
prolonged period of thinking one whispers to the other:
"We could eat the 30, I suppose."
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A hungry lion was roaming through the jungle looking for something to
eat. He came across two men. One was sitting under a tree and reading a
book; the other was typing away on his typewriter. The lion quickly
pounced on the man reading the book and devoured him. Even the king of
the jungle knows that readers digest and writers cramp.
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STORIES:
Engineering history lesson
It's not very often that we ask why things are the way
they are but here's an answer for you, The US standard railroad gauge
(distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That is an
exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used? Because that's the way
they built them in England, and the US railroads were built by English
expatriates. Why did the English build them that way? Because the first
rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad
tramways, and that's the gauge they used. Why did "they" use that
gauge?
Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools
that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing. So
why did the wagons have that particular odd spacing? Well, if they
tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of
the old, long distance roads in England, because that was the spacing of
the wheel ruts. So who built those old rutted roads? The first long
distance roads in England were built by Imperial Rome for their legions.
The roads have been used ever since. And the ruts in the roads? The ruts
in the roads, which everyone had to match for fear of destroying their
wagon wheels, were first formed by Roman war chariots. Since the chariots
were made for Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter
of wheel spacing. The US standard railroad gauge of 4 feet-8.5 inches
derives from the original specification for an Imperial Roman war
chariot. Specifications and bureaucracies live forever. So the next time
you are handed a specification and wonder what horse's arse came up
with it, you may be exactly right, because the Imperial Roman war
chariots
were made just wide enough to accommodate the back end of two war
horses. Thus we have the answer to the original question. Now for the
twist to the story. When we see a space shuttle sitting on it's
launching pad, there are two booster rockets attached to the side of the
main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRB's. The SRB's are
made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah. The engineers who designed the
SRB's might have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRB's had
to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad
line from the factory had to run through a tunnel in the mountains. The
tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track
is about as wide as two horses' rumps. So, a major design feature of
what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system has
determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse's arse!
Don't you just love engineering?
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U.S. Lawmaker Says He Is Worried About E-Mail Pregnancy
Citing the case of a woman who claims she got pregnant from
e-mail, an Ohio Democrat called Wednesday for a "chastity
chip" for the Internet. Rep. James Traficant, known for his
flamboyant rhetoric, gave a brief floor speech about a woman
named Frances who claimed to have gotten pregnant through an
e-mail exchange with a paramour 1,500 miles away. "That's right
-- pregnant," he proclaimed, warning of the dangers of
"immaculate reception." He called on Congress to go beyond
"v-chips" that would protect kids from sexual content on the
Internet, saying, "Its time for Congress to act. The computers
do not need a v-chip. The Internet needs a chastity chip."
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A while back there was a "true" story (urban legend) about a guy
who was interrupted by the doorbell.
Upon opening the door he found some religious nuts who were very
annoying. As he was in the middle of preparing dinner, he'd gone
to the door with a very large knife in his hand.
At some point, he called out to his friends asking if they'd gotten
virgin ready for the sacrifice. At this point, the callers fled
from the home, never to return again.
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POEMS:
Rosalina, a pretty young lass
Had a bruly magnificant ass:
Not rounded and pink,
As you possibly think -
It was grey, had long ears, and ate grass.
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Computer Eleanor Rigby
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Eleanor Rigby
Sits at the keyboard
And waits for a line on the screen
Lives in a dream
Waits for a signal
Finding some code
That will make the machine do some more.
What is it for?
All the lonely users, where do they all come from?
All the lonely users, why does it take so long?
Guru MacKenzie
Typing the lines of a program that no one will run;
Isn't it fun?
Look at him working,
Munching some chips as he waits for the code to compile;
It takes a while...
All the lonely users, where do they all come from?
All the lonely users, why does it take so long?
Eleanor Rigby
Crashes the system and loses 6 hours of work;
Feels like a jerk.
Guru MacKenzie
Wiping the crumbs off the keys as he types in the code;
Nothing will load.
All the lonely users, where do they all come from?
All the lonely users, why does it take so long?
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QUOTES:
The hardest thing about any political campaign is how to win without
proving that you are unworthy of winning.
- Adlai Stevenson
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Opportunity is missed by most people because
it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
- Thomas Edison
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"Television has proved that people will look at anything rather than
each other."
-- Ann Landers --
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"There are no problems that cannot be solved by the judicious use of high
explosives."
-- British Commando quote, circa WWII.
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"It's is not, it isn't ain't, and it's it's, not its, if you mean it is.
If
you don't, it's its. Then too, it's hers. It isn't her's. It isn't
our's
either. It's ours, and likewise yours and theirs."
-- Oxford University Press, Express News
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I'm not into working out. My philosophy: No pain, no pain.
- Carol Leifer
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