And You Thought YOU were Having a Bad Day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • A fierce gust of wind blew 45-year-old Vittorio Luise's car into a river near Naples, Italy in 1983. He managed to break out a window, climb out, and swim to shore -- where a tree blew over and killed him.

  • Mike Stewart, 31, of Dallas was filming a public service movie in 1983 on "The Dangers of Low-Level Bridges" when the truck he was standing on passed under a low-level bridge -- killing him.

  • Walter Hallas, a 26-year-old store clerk in Leeds, England was so afraid of dentists that in 1979 he asked a fellow worker to try to cure his toothache by punching him in the jaw. The punch caused Hallas to fall down, hitting his head, and he died of a fractured skull.

  • George Schwartz, owner of a factory in Providence, R.I. narrowly escaped death when a 1983 blast flattened his factory except for one wall. After treatment for minor injuries, he returned to the scene to search for his files. The remaining wall then collapsed on him, killing him instantly.

  • Depressed since he couldn't find a job, 42-year-old Romolo Ribolla sat in his kitchen near Pisa, Italy with a gun in his hand, threatening to kill himself in 1981. His wife pleaded for him not to do it, and after about an hour, he burst into tears and threw the gun to the floor. It went off and killed his wife.

  • In 1983, a Mrs. Carson of Lake Kushaqua, N.Y. was laid out in her coffin, presumed dead of heart disease. As mourners watched, she suddenly sat up. Her daughter dropped dead of fright.

  • A man hit by a car in New York City in 1977 got up uninjured, but laid back down in front of the car when a bystander told him to pretend he was hurt so he could collect insurance money. The car then rolled forward and crushed him to death.

  • Suprised while burgling a house in Antwerp, Belgium, a thief fled out the back door, clambered over a nine-foot wall, dropped down, and found himself in the city prison.

  • In 1976, a 22-year-old Irishman, Bob Finnegan, was crossing the busy Falls Road in Belfast, when he was struck by a taxi and flung over its roof. The taxi drove away and, as Finnegan lay stunned in the road, another car ran into him, rolling him into the gutter. It too drove on. As a knot of gawkers gathered to examine the magnetic Irishman, a delivery van plorson was hit -- Bob Finnegan. In the space of two minutes, Finnegan suffered a fractured skull, broken pelvis, broken leg, and other assorted injuries. Hospital officials said he would recover.

  • While motorcycling through the Hungarian countryside, Cristo Falatti came up to a railway border crossing, just as the crossing gates were coming down. While he sat idling, he was joined by a farmer with a goat, which the farmer tethered to the crossing gate. A few moments later a horseand cart drew up behind Falatti, followed in short order by a man in a sports car. When the train roared through the crossing, the horse startled and bit Falatti on the arm. Not a man to be triffled with, Falatti responded by punching the horse in the head. In consequence, the horse's owner jumped down from his cart and began scuffling with the motorcyclist. The horse, which was not up to this sort of excitement, backed away briskly, smashing the cart into the sports car. At this, the sports-car driver leaped out of his car and joined the fray. The farmer came forward to try to pacify the three flailing men. As he did so, the crossing gate rose and his goat was strangled. At last report, the insurance companies were still trying to sort out the claims.

  • Two German motorists had an all-too-literal head-on collision in heavy fog near the small town of Guetersloh. Each was guiding his car at a snail's pace from opposite directions but both near the middle of the road. At the moment of impact, their heads were both out of the windows where they smacked together. Both men were hospitalized with severe head injuries. Their cars weren't scratched.

  • In a case of "one thing leading to another", seven men, aged 18-27 years, received jail sentences of 3-4 years each in Kingston-On-Thames, England in 1979, after a fight that started when one of the men threw a french fry at another while they stood waiting for a train.

  • Hitting on the novel idea that he could end his wife's incessant nagging by giving her a good scare, Hungarian Jake Fen built an elaborate harness to make it look as if he had hanged himself. When his wife came home and saw him, she fainted. Hearing a disturbance, a neighbor came over and, finding what she thought were two corpses, seized the opportunity to loot the place. As she was leaving the room, her arms laden, the outraged and suspended Mr. Fen kicked her stoutly in the backside. This so suprised the lady that she dropped dead of a heart attack. Happily, Mr. Fen was acquitted of manslaughter, and he and his wife were reconciled.

  • A few years ago in California there was a raging brush fire. Once the fire was extinguished, the firefighters began the process of clean-up. In the middle of where the fire had been burning, they found a dead man wearing a scuba tank and wet suit. At first the firefighters were baffled as to why a man would be out in the middle of the countryside wearing full scuba gear. Upon further examination, it was determined that the man died from the impact with the ground and not the fire. As best anyone can determine, this man was scuba diving off the coast of California and was accidentally picked up by one of the firefighting aircraft when it was refilling its water tanks offshore.


Results of a contest for "theories" sponsored by Omni magazine.

GRAND PRIZE WINNER

When a cat is dropped, it always lands on its feet, and when toast is dropped, it always lands with the buttered side facing down. I propose to strap buttered toast to the back of a cat; the two will hover, spinning inches above the ground. With a giant buttered cat array, a high-speed monorail could easily link New York with Chicago.



RUNNERS-UP:

#1 If an infinite number of rednecks riding in an infinite number of pickup trucks fire an infinite number of shotgun rounds at an infinite number of highway signs, they will eventually produce all the world's great literary works in Braille.

#2 Why Yawning Is Contagious: You yawn to equalize the pressure on your eardrums. This pressure change outside your eardrums unbalances other people's ear pressures, so they must yawn to even it out.

#3 Communist China is technologically underdeveloped because they have no alphabet and therefore cannot use acronyms to communicate ideas at a faster rate.

#4 The earth may spin faster on its axis due to deforestation. Just as a figure skater's rate of spin decreases when the arms are brought in close to the body, the cutting of tall trees may cause our planet to spin dangerously fast.



HONORABLE MENTION:

The quantity of consonants in the English language is constant. If omitted in one place, they turn up in another. When a Bostonian "pahks" his "cah,"the lost r's migrate southwest, causing a Texan to "warsh" his car and invest in "erl wells."


The blind salesman

A lady goes into the local sporting goods store to buy a fishing rod to give to her husband for his birthday. A salesman wearing dark glasses with a dog is behind the counter and asks, "Can I help you ma'am ?" "Well, I'd like to buy a fishing rod, can you tell me about this one?" she answers. The salesman replies, "I'm sorry ma'am but I am blind and can not see the rod your referring too. However, if you'll drop it on the counter I'll tell you all about it as I can tell from the sound it makes." The lady picks up the rod, and does what he says and drops it on the counter. He belts "That's a Zebco 2500, fiberglass, 6.5', medium action - $15." Lady - "Wow !" She finds another and does the same. "Thats an Orion 35C, graphite, 6', light action - best used with ultralight tackle - $20." Very impressed the lady decides to buy the second one. As the man is ringing up the sale, the lady makes a rather large noise as she passes gas but feels no need to apologize as the salesman is blind and has no idea who she is. Salesman says, "That'll be $25." "TWENTY FIVE DOLLARS !? YOU SAID $20?" "That's right ma'am, $20 for the rod, $3 for the duck call, and $2 for the fish bait."


Last summer, the President and Mrs. Clinton were vacationing in their home state of Arkansas. On a venture one day, they stopped at a service station to fill up the car with gas. It seemed that the owner of the station was once Hillary's high school love. They exchanged hellos, and went on their way. As they were driving on to their destination, Bill put his arm around Hillary and said, "Well, honey, if you had stayed with him, you would be the wife of a service station owner today." She smirked and replied, "No. If I had stayed with him, he would be President of the United States."


Words of wisdom

  • If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.

  • A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.

  • Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.

  • For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.

  • He who hesitates is probably right.

  • No one is listening until you make a mistake.

  • Success always occurs in private, and failure in full view.

  • The colder the X-ray table, the more of your body is required on it.

  • The hardness of the butter is proportional to the softness of the bread.

  • The severity of the itch is proportional to the reach.

  • To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research.

  • Two wrongs are only the beginning.

  • You never really learn to swear until you learn to drive.

  • Monday is an awful way to spend 1/7th of your life.

  • The sooner you fall behind, the more time you'll have to catch up.

  • Change is inevitable....except from vending machines.

  • Don't sweat petty things....or pet sweaty things.

  • Plan to be spontaneous tomorrow.

  • If you think nobody cares about you, try missing a couple of payments.

  • I'd kill for a Nobel Peace Prize.

  • Everybody repeat after me....."We are all individuals."

  • Death to all fanatics!

  • Love may be blind, but marriage is a real eye-opener.

  • Bills travel through the mail at twice the speed of cheques.

  • Hard work pays off in the future. Laziness pays off now.

  • Eagles may soar, but weasels aren't sucked into jet engines.

  • Borrow money from pessimists--they don't expect it back.

  • Half the people you know are below average.

  • 99 percent of lawyers give the rest a bad name.

  • 42.7 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot.

  • If at first you don't succeed, then skydiving definitely isn't for you.


Actual excerpts from.....DEAR ABBY

A couple of women moved in across the hall from me. One is a middle-aged gym teacher and the other is a social worker in her mid-twenties. These two women go everywhere together and I've never seen a man go into their apartment or come out. Do you think they could be Lebanese?

I have a man I never could trust. Why, he cheats so much I'm not even sure this baby I'm carrying is his.

I am a twenty-three-year-old liberated woman who has been on the pill for two years. It's getting expensive and I think my boyfriend should share half the cost, but I don't know him well enough to discuss money with him.

I suspected that my husband had been fooling around, and when I confronted him with the evidence he denied everything and said it would never happen again.

Will you please rush me the name of a reliable, illegitimate doctor?

Our son writes that he is taking Judo. Why would a boy who was raised in a good Christian home turn against his own?

I joined the Navy to see the world. I've seen it. Now how do I get out?

My forty-year-old son has been paying a psychiatrist $50 an hour every week for two-and-a-half years. He must be crazy.

I was married to Bill for three months and I didn't know he drank until one night he came home sober.

Do you think it would be all right if I gave my doctor a little gift? I tried for years to get pregnant and couldn't and he finally did it.

My mother is mean and short-tempered. I think she is going through her mental pause.

I met this nice guy who was in the service. He's the chief petting officer.

Then you told some woman whose husband had lost all interest in sex to send him to a doctor. Well, my husband lost all interest in sex years ago and he is a doctor.

This is the second marriage for us. And when my husband said "I will," he knew very well he couldn't.



DEAR ABBY: I've been going steady with this man for six years. We see each other every night. He says he loves me, and I know I love him, but he never mentions marriage. Do you think he's going out with me just for what he can get? -- GERTIE
DEAR GERTIE: I don't know. What's he getting?

DEAR ABBY: My husband hates to spend money! I cut my own hair and make my own clothes, and I have to account for every nickel I spend. Meanwhile he has a stock of savings bonds put away that would choke a cow. How do I get some money out of him before we are both called to our final judgment? He says he's saving for a rainy day. -- FORTY YEARS HITCHED
DEAR HITCHED: Tell him it's raining!

DEAR ABBY: My boyfriend is going to be twenty years old next month. I'd like to give him something nice for his birthday. What do you think he'd like? -- CAROL
DEAR CAROL: Never mind what he'd like. Give him a tie.

DEAR ABBY: Are birth control pills deductible? -- KAY
DEAR KAY: Only if they don't work.


DIM ENTHUSIAST GUNS DOWN MAGICIAN

Reaching the climax of his magic act in Azul, Argentina, Professor Jorge Marvo asked his assistant to shoot him in the face. The gun was fired, and Marvo proudly pulled the bullet from his teeth. Gold miner Marco Asprella was so impressed with the trick that he took out his handgun and, with a shout of "Catch this one Professor!" fired it at the magicians head. Marvo was killed instantly. At his trial, the distraught Asprella was unable to understand why the magician failed to catch his bullet. He was acquitted of murder.


Midair Passenger Exchange - Grim air-traffic-controller-speak for a head-on collision. Midair passenger exchanges are quickly followed by "aluminum rain."


Percussive Maintenance - The fine art of whacking the crap out of an electronic device to get it to work again.


Mark Steuer <steuerm@nichols.com> recounts this D"D tale:

"Many years ago (back when we all were still playing D " D), I ran a game where I pitted two groups against each other. Several members of Group One came up with the idea of luring Group Two into a trap. You remember the Hand of Vecna and the Eye of Vecna that were artifacts in the old D"D world where if you cut off your hand (or your eye) and replaced it with the Hand of Vecna (or the Eye) you'd get new awesome powers? Well, Group One thought up The Head of Vecna.

Group One spread rumors all over the countryside (even paying Bards to spread the word about this artifact rumored to exist nearby). They even went so far as to get a real head and place it under some weak traps to help with the illusion. Unfortunately, they forgot to let ALL the members of their group in on the secret plan (I suspect it was because they didn't want the Druid to get caught and tell the enemy about this trap of theirs, or maybe because they didn't want him messing with things).

The Druid in group One heard about this new artifact and went off in search of it himself (I believe to help prove himself to the party members...) Well, after much trial and tribulation, he found it; deactivated (or set off) all the traps; and took his "prize" off into the woods for examination. He discovered that it did not radiate magic (a well known trait of artifacts) and smiled gleefully. I wasn't really worried since he was alone and I knew that there was no way he could CUT HIS OWN HEAD OFF. Alas I was mistaken as the Druid promptly summoned some omnivorous apes and instructed them to use his own scimitar and cut his head off (and of course quickly replacing it with the Head of Vecna...)

Some time later, Group one decided to find the Druid and to check on the trap. They found the headless body (and the two heads) and realized that they had erred in their plan (besides laughing at the character who had played the Druid)...The Head of Vecna still had BOTH eyes! They corrected this mistake and reset their traps and the Head for it's real intended victims...

Group Two, by this time, had heard of the powerful artifact and decided that it bore investigating since, if true, they could use it to destroy Group One. After much trial and tribulation, they found the resting place of The Head of Vecna! The were particularly impressed with the cunning traps surrounding the site (one almost missed his save against the weakest poison known to man). They recovered the Head and made off to a safe area.

Group Two actually CAME TO BLOWS (several rounds of fighting) against each other arguing over WHO WOULD GET THEIR HEAD CUT OFF! Several greedy players had to be hurt and restrained before it was decided who would be the recipient of the great powers bestowed by the Head... The magician was selected and one of them promptly cut his head off. As the player was lifting The Head of Vecna to place it on it's new body, another argument broke out and they spent several minutes shouting and yelling. Then, finally, they put the Head onto the character.

Well, of course, the Head simply fell off the lifeless body. All members of Group Two began yelling and screaming at each other (and at me) and then, on their own, decided that they had let too much time pass between cutting off the head of a hopeful recipient and put the Head of Vecna onto the body. SO THEY DID IT AGAIN!... [killing another PC]

So let that be a warning to you - don't let your head get cut off unless you really know what you're doing.


The following poem appeared recently in INFOCUS magazine. The original authors were Fred Bremmer and Steve Kroese of Calvin College & Seminary of Grand Rapids, MI.

A poll conducted among INFOCUS readers had established "waka" as the proper pronunciation for the angle-bracket characters <, though some readers held out resolutely for "norkies."

The text of the poem follows:

<<!*''#
^"`$$-
!*=@$_
%*<<~#4
&[]../
|{,,SYSTEM HALTED

The poem can only be appreciated by reading it aloud, to wit:

Waka waka bang splat tick tick hash,
Caret quote back-tick dollar dollar dash,
Bang splat equal at dollar under-score,
Percent splat waka waka tilde number four,
Ampersand bracket bracket dot dot slash,
Vertical-bar curly-bracket comma comma CRASH


Completing the Circuit

It's common practice in England to ring a telephone by signaling extra voltage across one side of the two wire circuit and ground (earth in England). When the subscriber answers the phone, it switches to the two wire circuit for the conversation. This method allows two parties on the same line to be signalled without disturbing each other.

Anyway, an elderly lady with several pets called to say that her telephone failed to ring when her friends called, and that on the few occasions when it did ring her dog always barked first. The telephone repairman proceeded to the scene, curious to see this psychic dog.

He climbed a nearby telephone pole, hooked in his test set, and dialed the subscriber's house. The phone didn't ring. He tried again. The dog barked loudly, followed by a ringing telephone.

Climbing down from the pole, the telephone repairman found:

a. The dog was tied to the telephone system's ground post via an iron chain and collar.

b. The dog was receiving 90 volts of signalling current.

c. After several such jolts, the dog would start barking, and urinating on the ground.

d. The wet ground now completed the circuit, and the phone would ring.

Which shows you that some problems can be fixed by just pissing on them. But only temporarily.


A hobo (wanderer) comes up to the front door of a neat looking farmhouse and raps gently on the door. When the farm owner answers, the hobo asks him, "Please, sir, could you give me something to eat? I haven't had a good meal in several days."

The owner says, "I have made a fortune in my lifetime by supplying goods for people. I've never given anything away for nothing. However, if you go around the back, you will see a gallon of paint and a clean paint brush. If you will paint my porch in the back of the house, I will give you a good meal."

So the hobo goes around back and a while later he again knocks on the door. The owner says, "Finished already? Good. Come on in. Sit down The cook will bring your meal right in."

The hobo says, "Thank you very much, sir. But there's something that I think you should know. It's not a Porche you got there. It's a BMW.".


Microsoft Sues Bandai Over Tamagotchi

Redmond WA, (AP).

Microsoft (MSFT) has announced a 54 million dollar lawsuit against Tomagotchi maker, Bandai. Microsoft is claiming that the Tomagotchi (the Japanese electronic pet that's all the rage with the kids) is an infringement of its intellectual property. Microsoft spokesperson, Erik Loregard stated "Software that needs constant, even hourly attention, or else it dies? Sounds like Windows to me. This is clearly an infringement on our technology".

The Bandai company spokesman refused to comment on the suit.


Good news for Women!

According to research, female managers are more popular than male ones. Such was not the case in Japan, however, where one female executive was recently arrested for attacking a male employee with a drill. From the moment Matsuo Kabishi, 47, began work at Sappira Accountancy in Tokyo, it was clear she was going to be a strong disciplinarian. "She was terrifying", admitted one man. "I once sneezed and she hit me on the head with a Pyrex paperweight. I had to have three stitches." During her six months at the firm, Ms Kabishi sacked one man for having dirty fingernails, stabbed another for crying because his mother had died and set a secratary alight for making a typing error. Things came to a head when a trainee accountant accidentally broke wind during a meeting, whereupon Ms Kabishi produced a cordless power drill from her handbag and drilled him in the ear, an incident that led to her arrest and subsequent sacking. "She made the simple mistake of equating firmness with extreme violence", oppined Sappira's managing director.


It was at the end of the school year, and a kindergarten teacher was receiving gifts from her pupils.

The florist's son handed her a gift. She shook it, held it overhead, and said, "I bet I know what it is -- some flowers."

"That's right," the boy said, "but how did you know?"

"Oh, just a wild guess," she said.

The next pupil was the candy store owner's daughter. The teacher held her gift overhead, shook it, and said, "I bet I can guess what it is -- a box of candy."

"That's right, but how did you know?" asked the girl.

"Oh, just a wild guess," said the teacher.

The next gift was from the son of the liquor store owner. The teacher held it overhead, but it was leaking. She touched a drop of the leakage with her finger and touched it to her tongue. "Is it wine?" she asked.

"No," the boy replied.

The teacher repeated the process, touching another drop of the leakage to her tongue. "Is it champagne?" she asked.

"No," the boy replied again.

The teacher then said, "I give up, what is it?"

The boy replied, "A puppy!"


In England, from an actual trial:

A young woman who was several months pregnant boarded a bus. When she noticed a young man smiling at her, she began feeling humiliated on account of her condition. She changed her seat, and he seemed more amused. She moved again. And then again. On her fourth move, he burst out laughing.

She had him arrested.

When the case came before court, this was the man's reply when asked why he acted in such a manner:

When the lady boarded the bus, I couldn't help noticing she was pregnant.

She sat under an advertisement which read..... 'Coming Soon: The Gold Dust Twins'

Then, she moved under another one that read.... 'Sloans Liniments Remove Swelling'

I was even more amused when she sat under a shaving advertisement which read...... William Stick Did The Trick'

Then I could not control myself any longer when on the fourth move she sat under an advertisement which read..... 'Dunlop Rubber would have prevented this accident.'

He won the case.


Here's a little clarification of typical corporate lingo.

  1. COMPETITIVE SALARY: We remain competitive by paying less than our competitors.
  2. JOIN OUR FAST-PACED COMPANY: We have no time to train you and you'll have to introduce yourself to your co-workers.
  3. SEEKING ENTHUSIASTIC, FUN, HARD WORKING, PEOPLE: ...who still live with their parents and won't mind our internship-level salaries.
  4. CASUAL WORK ATMOSPHERE: We don't pay enough to expect that you'll dress up; well, a couple of the real daring guys wear ear rings.
  5. JOIN OUR DYNAMIC TEAM: We all listen to nutty motivational tapes.
  6. MUST BE DEADLINE ORIENTED: You'll be six months behind schedule on your first day.
  7. SOME OVERTIME REQUIRED: Some time each night and some time each weekend.
  8. DUTIES WILL VARY: Anyone in the office can boss you around.
  9. MUST HAVE AN EYE FOR DETAIL: We have no quality control.
  10. COLLEGE DEGREE PREFERRED: Unless you wasted those four years studying something useless like philosophy or English.
  11. NO PHONE CALLS PLEASE: We've filled the job; our call for resumes is just a legal formality.
  12. SEEKING CANDIDATES WITH A WIDE VARIETY OF EXPERIENCE: You'll need it to replace three people who just left.
  13. PROBLEM-SOLVING SKILLS A MUST: You're walking into a company in perpetual chaos.
  14. REQUIRES TEAM LEADERSHIP SKILLS: You'll have the responsibilities of a manager, without the pay or respect.
  15. GOOD COMMUNICATION SKILLS: Management communicates, you listen, figure out what they want, and then do it.

Start writing those resumes !


Owed to a Spell in Checker...

I have a spelling checker,
It came with my PC
It plane lee marks four my revue
Miss steaks eye can knot sea.

Eye ran this poem threw it.
You sure reel glad two no
Its vary polished in it's weigh,
My checker tolled me sew.

A checker is a bless sing.
It freeze yew lodes of thymes.
It helps me right awl stiles two reeds,
And aides me when aye rime.

To rite with care is quite a feet
Of witch won should be proud.
And wee mussed dew the best wee can,
Sew flaws are knot aloud.

And now bee cause my spelling
Is checked with such grate flare,
Their are know faults with in my cite.
Of none eye am a wear.

Each frays come posed up on my screen
Eye trussed to be a joule.
The checker poured oar every word
To cheque sum spelling rule.

That's why aye brake in two averse
By righting wants two pleas.
Sow now ewe sea why aye dew prays
Such soft wear for pea seas!.

Poet of this Poet-Tree knot known-


wants two pleas.
Sow now ewe sea why aye dew prays
Such soft wear for pea seas!.

Poet of this Poet-Tree knot known-