04

If you live long enough, you'll see that every victory turns into a defeat.
		-- Simone De Beauvoir


Love means nothing to a tennis player.


A candidate is a person who gets money from the rich
and votes from the poor to protect them from each other.


Once upon a time, when I was training to be a mathematician, a group of
us bright young students taking number theory discovered the names of the
smaller prime numbers.

2:  The Odd Prime --
	It's the only even prime, therefore is odd.  QED.
3:  The True Prime --
	Lewis Carroll: "If I tell you 3 times, it's true."
31: The Arbitrary Prime --
	Determined by unanimous unvote.  We needed an arbitrary prime in
	case the prof asked for one, and so had an election.  91 received
	the most votes (well, it *looks* prime) and 3+4i the next most.
	However, 31 was the only candidate to receive none at all.
41: The Female Prime --
	The polynomial X**2 - X + 41 is
	prime for integer values from 1 to 40.
43: The Male Prime - they form a prime pair.

Since the composite numbers are formed from primes, their qualities
are derived from those primes.  So, for instance, the number 6 is "odd
but true", while the powers of 2 are all extremely odd numbers.


Egotism, n.:
	Doing the New York Times crossword puzzle with a pen.


	The Tao gave birth to machine language.  Machine language gave birth
to the assembler.
	The assembler gave birth to the compiler.  Now there are ten thousand
languages.
	Each language has its purpose, however humble.  Each language
expresses the Yin and Yang of software.  Each language has its place within
the Tao.
	But do not program in COBOL if you can avoid it.
		-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"


Because the wine remembers.


With a rubber duck, one's never alone.
		-- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"


Peers's Law:
The solution to a problem changes the nature of the problem.


You guys have been practicing discrimination for years.
Now it's our turn.
		-- Thurgood Marshall, quoted by Justice Douglas


Good girls go to heaven, bad girls go everywhere.


 U       X
e dUdX, e dX, cosine, secant, tangent, sine, 3.14159...


An ounce of mother is worth a ton of priest.
		-- Spanish proverb


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


	One day a mother and daughter are walking around a farming community
and they see a stallion mounting a mare.  The daughter takes in the scene and
turns to her mother. "Mommy, what are those two horses doing?"
	Her mother hastily answered, "The horse on top hurt its hoof, and the
one on the bottom is carrying him back to the stable."
	The daughter shook her head and sadly replied, "Isn't that just the
way it goes?  Try to help someone and you get fucked."


You have not converted a man because you have silenced him.
		-- John Viscount Morley


Ambidextrous, adj.:
	Able to pick with equal skill a right-hand pocket or a left.
		-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"


My darling wife was always glum.
I drowned her in a cask of rum,
And so made sure that she would stay
In better spirits night and day.


prototype, n.
	First stage in the life cycle of a computer product, followed by
	pre-alpha, alpha, beta, release version, corrected release version,
	upgrade, corrected upgrade, etc.  Unlike its successors, the
	prototype is not expected to work.


There was a young tenor named Springer,
Got his testicles caught in a wringer.
	He hollered in pain,
	As they rolled down the drain,
"There goes my career as a singer!"


After all, what is your hosts' purpose in having a party?  Surely not for
you to enjoy yourself; if that were their sole purpose, they'd have simply
sent champagne and women over to your place by taxi.
		-- P. J. O'Rourke


Rainy days and Mondays always get me down.


I hate babies.  They're so human.
		-- H. H. Munro


It is difficult to legislate morality in the absence of moral legislators.


I really had to act; 'cause I didn't have any lines.
		-- Marilyn Chambers


If you want your spouse to listen and pay strict attention to every word
you say, talk in your sleep.


I'd love to go out with you, but I'm taking punk totem pole carving.


Universities are places of knowledge.  The freshman each bring a little
in with them, and the seniors take none away, so knowledge accumulates.


Big M, Little M, many mumbling mice
Are making midnight music in the moonlight,
Mighty nice!


I might have gone to West Point, but I was too proud to speak to a
congressman.
		-- Will Rogers


I had a feeling once about mathematics -- that I saw it all.  Depth beyond
depth was revealed to me -- the Byss and the Abyss. I saw -- as one might
see the transit of Venus or even the Lord Mayor's Show -- a quantity passing
through infinity and changing its sign from plus to minus.  I saw exactly
why it happened and why tergiversation was inevitable -- but it was after
dinner and I let it go.
		-- Winston Churchill


If we could sell our experiences for what they cost us, we would
all be millionaires.
		-- Abigail Van Buren


QOTD:
	"I'd crawl a mile over burning desert sand just to kiss the dick of
	the guy who screwed her last."


Breadth-first search is the bulldozer of science.
		-- Randy Goebel


An idea is an eye given by God for the seeing of God.  Some of these
eyes we cannot bear to look out of, we blind them as quickly as
possible.
		-- Russell Hoban, "Pilgermann"


How sharper than a hound's tooth it is to have a thankless serpent.


Out of the mouths of babes does often come cereal.


Where, oh, where, are you tonight?
Why did you leave me here all alone?
I searched the world over, and I thought I'd found true love.
You met another, and *PPHHHLLLBBBBTTT*, you wuz gone.

Gloom, despair and agony on me.
Deep dark depression, excessive misery.
If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all.
Oh, gloom, despair and agony on me.
		-- Hee Haw


President Thieu says he'll quit if he doesn't get more than 50%
of the vote.  In a democracy, that's not called quitting.
		-- The Washington Post


America's two greatest inventions are finger-fucking and carpet-bombing.
		-- Lyndon B. Johnson


Nothing is so often irretrievably missed as a daily opportunity.
		-- Ebner-Eschenbach


What good is an obscenity trial except to popularize literature?
		-- Nero Wolfe, "The League of Frightened Men"


No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.


The real trouble with reality is that there's no background music.


Is it weird in here, or is it just me?
		-- Steven Wright


Truly simple systems... require infinite testing.
		-- Norman Augustine


Hang gliders come down very slowly.


I was working on a case.  It had to be a case, because I couldn't afford a
desk.  Then I saw her.  This tall blond lady.  She must have been tall
because I was on the third floor.  She rolled her deep blue eyes towards
me.  I picked them up and rolled them back.  We kissed.  She screamed.  I
took the cigarette from my mouth and kissed her again.


The bank sent our statement this morning,
The red ink was a sight of great awe!
Their figures and mine might have balanced,
But my wife was too quick on the draw.


He's a son-of-a-bitch, but he's our son-of-a-bitch.
		-- FDR on Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza


Sometimes a man who deserves to be looked down upon because he is a
fool is despised only because he is a lawyer.
		-- Montesquieu


Courage is grace under pressure.


Q:	How can you tell when a Burroughs salesman is lying?
A:	When his lips move.


Justice, n.:
	A decision in your favor.


Lake Erie died for your sins.


There is a certain frame of mind to which a cemetery
is, if not an antidote, at least an alleviation.  If
you are in a fit of the blues, go nowhere else.
		-- Robert Louis Stevenson, "Immortelles"


Sometimes, too long is too long.
		-- Joe Crowe


	A bear and a rabbit are taking a crap in the woods.  The bear looks
over at the rabbit and asks, "Say, does shit ever stick to your fur?"
	"No."
	So the bear wiped his ass with the rabbit.


A psychiatrist is a person who will give you expensive answers that
your wife will give you for free.


Evening hours "all clear" for romance!
(Tell mate you have to work late.)


I don't care how poor and inefficient a little country is; they like to
run their own business.  I know men that would make my wife a better
husband than I am; but, darn it, I'm not going to give her to 'em.
		-- The Best of Will Rogers


I ain't got no quarrel with them Viet Congs.
		-- Muhammad Ali


The whole of life is futile unless you
consider it as a sporting proposition.


You know, the difference between this company and
the Titanic is that the Titanic had paying customers.


Fashions have done more harm than revolutions.
		-- Victor Hugo


THE WORST BANK ROBBERY

In August 1975 three men were on their way in to rob the Royal Bank of
Scotland at Rothesay, when they got stuck in the revolving doors.  They
had to be helped free by the staff and, after thanking everyone,
sheepishly left the building.
A few minutes later they returned and announced their intention of
robbing the bank, but none of the staff believed them.  When they demanded
5,000 pounds in cash, the head cashier laughed at them, convinced that it
was a practical joke.
Then one of the men jumped over the counter, but fell to the floor
clutching his ankle.  The other two tried to make their getaway, but got
trapped in the revolving doors again.


Delusions are often functional. A mother's opinions about
her children's beauty, intelligence, goodness, et cetera ad
nauseam, keep her from drowning them at birth.


-- The writing implement is more potent than the claymore.
-- The person presenting the ultimate cachinnation possesses thereby the
	optimal cachinnation.


A society in which women are taught anything but the management of a family,
the care of men, and the creation of the future generation is a society
which is on its way out.
		-- L. Ron Hubbard


May Euell Gibbons eat your only copy of the manual!


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


Planet Claire has pink hair.
All the trees are red.
No one ever dies there.
No one has a head....


Hollywood is where if you don't have happiness you send out for it.
		-- Rex Reed


Q:	How do you tell that your roommate's gay?
A:	When his cock tastes like shit.


What makes us so bitter against people who outwit us
is that they think themselves cleverer than we are.


Nouvelle cuisine, n.:
	French for "not enough food".

Continental breakfast, n.:
	English for "not enough food".

Tapas, n.:
	Spanish for "not enough food".

Dim Sum, n.:
	Chinese for more food than you've ever seen in your entire life.


The answer to the question of Life, the Universe, and Everything is...

	Four day work week,
	Two ply toilet paper!


Spare no expense to save money on this one.
		-- Samuel Goldwyn


If we could sell our experiences for what they cost us, we would
all be millionaires.
		-- Abigail Van Buren


I have a hard time being attracted to anyone who can beat me up.
		-- John McGrath, Atlanta sportswriter, on women weightlifters


They're unfriendly, which is fortunate, really.  They'd be difficult
to like.
		-- Avon


Man usually avoids attributing cleverness to somebody else -- unless it
is an enemy.
		-- Albert Einstein


Although we modern persons tend to take our electric lights, radios,
mixers, etc., for granted, hundreds of years ago people did not have
any of these things, which is just as well because there was no place
to plug them in.  Then along came the first Electrical Pioneer,
Benjamin Franklin, who flew a kite in a lighting storm and received a
serious electrical shock.  This proved that lighting was powered by the
same force as carpets, but it also damaged Franklin's brain so severely
that he started speaking only in incomprehensible maxims, such as "A
penny saved is a penny earned."  Eventually he had to be given a job
running the post office.
		-- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?"


He used to kiss her on her lips, but it's all over now.


If you are not for yourself, who will be for you?
If you are for yourself, then what are you?
If not now, when?


The night passes quickly when you're asleep
But I'm out shufflin' for something to eat
...
Breakfast at the Egg House,
Like the waffle on the griddle,
I'm burnt around the edges,
But I'm tender in the middle.
		-- Adrian Belew


Two men look out through the same bars; one sees mud, and one the stars.


Do not try to solve all life's problems at once --
learn to dread each day as it comes.
		-- Donald Kaul


Kasha, n.:
	Kasha is always defined as "buckwheat groats".  There's only
	one problem with this definition: what the fuck are "buckwheat
	groats"?  *_I* know what they are -- they're kasha.  But that
	doesn't help *_y_o_u* much.
		-- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"


In time, every post tends to be occupied by an
employee who is incompetent to carry out its duties.
		-- Dr. Laurence J. Peter


XEROX never does anything original.


If there was any justice in the world, "trust" would be a four-letter word.


-- Scintillate, scintillate, asteroid minikin.
-- Members of an avian species of identical plumage congregate.
-- Surveillance should precede saltation.
-- Pulchritude possesses solely cutaneous profundity.
-- It is fruitless to become lachrymose over precipitately departed
	lacteal fluid.
-- Freedom from incrustations of grime is contiguous to rectitude.
-- It is fruitless to attempt to indoctrinate a superannuated
	canine with innovative maneuvers.
-- Eschew the implement of correction and vitiate the scion.
-- The temperature of the aqueous content of an unremittingly
	galled saucepan does not reach 212 degrees Fahrenheit.


I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.  Come, let us
take our fill of love until the morning.
		-- Proverbs 7:17-18


Either I'm dead or my watch has stopped.
		-- Groucho Marx' last words


Never be led astray onto the path of virtue.


A midget had a date with a very tall girl.  It was a quiff-hanger.


Swallow, v.:
	The (blew) bird of birth control.


First Law of Socio-Genetics:
	Celibacy is not hereditary.


Walking on water wasn't built in a day.
		-- Jack Kerouac


All hope abandon, ye who enter here!
		-- Dante Alighieri


Fortune's Great Moments in History: #3

August 27, 1949:
	A Hall of Fame opened to honor outstanding members of the
	Women's Air Corp.  It was a WAC's Museum.


To be intoxicated is to feel sophisticated but not be able to say it.


Language is a virus from another planet.
		-- William Burroughs


This is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.
And now you know why.


The solution of this problem is trivial
and is left as an exercise for the reader.


For courage mounteth with occasion.
		-- William Shakespeare, "King John"


Peterson's Rules:
	(1) Trucks that overturn on freeways
		are filled with something sticky.
	(2) No cute baby in a carriage is ever a girl when called one.
	(3) Things that tick are not always clocks.
	(4) Suicide only works when you're bluffing.


But we've only fondled the surface of that subject.
		-- Virginia Masters, of Master & Johnson


Courtship to marriage, as a very witty prologue to a very dull play.
		-- William Congreve


How sharper than a serpent's tooth is a sister's "See?"
		-- Linus Van Pelt


We are simple killers of people and destroyers of property.


I have to think hard to name an interesting man who does not drink.
		-- Richard Burton


Reliable source, n.:
	The guy you just met.


A timely marriage: one made before your children start nagging you about it.
		-- Diane Duane


A mind is a wonderful thing to waste.


Football combines the two worst features of American life.
It is violence punctuated by committee meetings.
		-- George F. Will, "Men At Work:  The Craft of Baseball"


Fly me away to the bright side of the moon ...


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!


You may be gone tomorrow, but that
doesn't mean that you weren't here today.


Q:	Why did the germ cross the microscope?
A:	To get to the other slide.


I know the answer!  The answer lies within the heart of all mankind!
The answer is twelve?  I think I'm in the wrong building.
		-- Charles Schulz


FORTUNE TESTS THE GREAT MANAGERS: #3

You have prepared a proposal for your supervisor.  The success of this
proposal will mean increasing your salary 20%.  In the middle of your
proposal your supervisor leans over to look at your report and spits into
your coffee.  You:

	(a)  Tell him you take your coffee black.
	(b)  Ask him if he has any communicable diseases.
	(c)  Show him who's in command; promptly take a piss in his
		"In" basket.
	(d)  Take a sip and comment how much better it tastes.


Reality is nothing but a collective hunch.
		-- Lily Tomlin


Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of APL, I shall
fear no evil, for I can string six primitive monadic and dyadic
operators together.
		-- Steve Higgins


Woody: Hey, Mr. Peterson, what do you say to a cold one?
Norm:  See you later, Vera, I'll be at Cheers.
		-- Cheers, Norm's Last Hurrah

Sam:	Well, look at you.  You look like the cat that
	swallowed the canary.
Norm:	And I need a beer to wash him down.
		-- Cheers, Norm's Last Hurrah

Woody:  Would you like a beer, Mr. Peterson?
Norm:   No, I'd like a dead cat in a glass.
		-- Cheers, Little Carla, Happy at Last, Part 2


If you're constantly being mistreated,
you're cooperating with the treatment.


Hear about...
	the girl who called her boyfriend Amaretto, 'cause he was
	such a sweet liquor?


This is the _L_A_S_T time I take travel suggestions from Ray Bradbury!


The student in question is performing minimally for his peer group and
is an emerging underachiever.


Marriage has driven more than one man to sex.
		-- Peter De Vries


You will be a winner today.  Pick a fight with a four-year-old.


If your sexual fantasies were truly of interest to others, they would no
longer be fantasies.
		-- Fran Lebowitz


Unless you love someone, nothing else makes any sense.
		-- e. e. cummings


Think honk if you're a telepath.


Lie, n.:
	A very poor substitute for the truth, but the only one
	discovered to date.


How comes it to pass, then, that we appear such cowards
in reasoning, and are so afraid to stand the test of ridicule?
		-- A. Cooper


	A programmer from a very large computer company went to a software
conference and then returned to report to his manager, saying: "What sort
of programmers work for other companies?  They behaved badly and were
unconcerned with appearances. Their hair was long and unkempt and their
clothes were wrinkled and old. They crashed our hospitality suites and they
made rude noises during my presentation."
	The manager said: "I should have never sent you to the conference.
Those programmers live beyond the physical world.  They consider life absurd,
an accidental coincidence.  They come and go without knowing limitations.
Without a care, they live only for their programs.  Why should they bother
with social conventions?"
	"They are alive within the Tao."
		-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"


We the unwilling, led by the ungrateful, are doing the impossible.
We've done so much, for so long, with so little,
that we are now qualified to do something with nothing.


(null cookie; hope that's ok)


Flowchart, n. & v.:
	[From flow "to ripple down in rich profusion, as hair" + chart
"a cryptic hidden-treasure map designed to mislead the uninitiated."]
1. n. The solution, if any, to a class of Mascheroni construction
problems in which given algorithms require geometrical representation
using only the 35 basic ideograms of the ANSI template.  2. n. Neronic
doodling while the system burns.  3. n. A low-cost substitute for
wallpaper.  4. n.  The innumerate misleading the illiterate.  "A
thousand pictures is worth ten lines of code." -- The Programmer's
Little Red Vade Mecum, Mao Tse T'umps.  5. v.intrans. To produce
flowcharts with no particular object in mind.  6. v.trans. To obfuscate
(a problem) with esoteric cartoons.
		-- Stan Kelly-Bootle, "The Devil's DP Dictionary"


Cthulhu Saves -- in case He's hungry later.


To err is human, to forgive, beyond the scope of the Operating System.


Any fool can paint a picture, but it takes a
wise person to be able to sell it.


Help a swallow land at Capistrano.


The reason it's called "Grape Nuts" is that it contains "dextrose",
which is also sometimes called "grape sugar", and also because "Grape
Nuts" is catchier, in terms of marketing, than "A Cross Between Gerbil
Food and Gravel", which is what it tastes like.
		-- Dave Barry, "Tips for Writer's"


Snacktrek, n.:
	The peculiar habit, when searching for a snack, of constantly
	returning to the refrigerator in hopes that something new will
	have materialized.
		-- Rich Hall & Friends, "Sniglets"


[He] played the King as if afraid someone else might play the ace.
		-- Unattributed review of a performance of King Lear

My tears stuck in their little ducts, refusing to be jerked.
		-- Peter Stack, movie review

His performance is so wooden you want to spray him with Liquid Pledge.
		-- John Stark, movie review


All art is but imitation of nature.
		-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca


Heavy, adj.:
	Seduced by the chocolate side of the force.


Nothing is ever a total loss; it can always serve as a bad example.


The weather is here, I wish you were beautiful.
My thoughts aren't too clear, but don't run away.
My girlfriend's a bore; my job is too dutiful.
Hell nobody's perfect, would you like to play?
I feel together today!
		-- Jimmy Buffet, "Coconut Telegraph"