Call : Dictionary / Wörterbuch (BEOLINGUS, TU Chemnitz)

Proverbs, aphorisms, quotations (English)	by Linux fortune

A Hollywood producer calls a friend, another producer on the phone. "Hello?" his friend answers. "Hi!" says the man. "This is Bob, how are you doing?" "Oh," says the friend, "I'm doing great! I just sold a screenplay for two hundred thousand dollars. I've started a novel adaptation and the studio advanced me fifty thousand dollars on it. I also have a television series coming on next week, and everyone says it's going to be a big hit! I'm doing great! How are you?" "Okay," says the producer, "give me a call when he leaves."
A writer is congenitally unable to tell the truth and that is why we call what he writes fiction. -- William Faulkner
Hello. Jim Rockford's machine, this is Larry Doheny's machine. Will you please have your master call my master at his convenience? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. -- "The Rockford Files"
Jane and I got mixed up with a television show -- or as we call it back east here: TV -- a clever contraction derived from the words Terrible Vaudeville. However, it is our latest medium -- we call it a medium because nothing's well done. It was discovered, I suppose you've heard, by a man named Fulton Berle, and it has already revolutionized social grace by cutting down parlour conversation to two sentences: "What's on television?" and "Good night". -- Goodman Ace, letter to Groucho Marx, in The Groucho Letters, 1967
Mr. Rockford, this is the Thomas Crown School of Dance and Contemporary Etiquette. We aren't going to call again! Now you want these free lessons or what? -- "The Rockford Files"
Mr. Rockford? You don't know me, but I'd like to hire you. Could you call me at... My name is... uh... Never mind, forget it! -- "The Rockford Files"
"Oh sure, this costume may look silly, but it lets me get in and out of dangerous situations -- I work for a federal task force doing a survey on urban crime. Look, here's my ID, and here's a number you can call, that will put you through to our central base in Atlanta. Go ahead, call -- they'll confirm who I am. "Unless, of course, the Astro-Zombies have destroyed it." -- Captain Freedom
The big problem with pornography is defining it. You can't just say it's pictures of people naked. For example, you have these primitive African tribes that exist by chasing the wildebeest on foot, and they have to go around largely naked, because, as the old tribal saying goes: "N'wam k'honi soit qui mali," which means, "If you think you can catch a wildebeest in this climate and wear clothes at the same time, then I have some beach front property in the desert region of Northern Mali that you may be interested in." So it's not considered pornographic when National Geographic publishes color photographs of these people hunting the wildebeest naked, or pounding one rock onto another rock for some primitive reason naked, or whatever. But if National Geographic were to publish an article entitled "The Girls of the California Junior College System Hunt the Wildebeest Naked," some people would call it pornography. But others would not. And still others, such as the Spectacularly Rev. Jerry Falwell, would get upset about seeing the wildebeest naked. -- Dave Barry, "Pornography"
The Great Movie Posters: When You're Six Tons -- And They Call You Killer -- It's Hard To Make Friends... -- Namu, the Killer Whale (1966) Meet the Girls with the Thermo-Nuclear Navels! -- Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs (1966) A GHASTLY TALE DRENCHED WITH GOUTS OF BLOOD SPURTING FROM THE VICTIMS OF A CRAZED MADMAN'S LUST. -- A Taste of Blood (1967)
Recursivity. Call back if it happens again.
The Token fell out of the ring. Call us when you find it.
Elves on strike. (Why do they call EMAG Elf Magic)
Network failure - call NBC
Someone else stole your IP address, call the Internet detectives!
The Least Perceptive Literary Critic The most important critic in our field of study is Lord Halifax. A most individual judge of poetry, he once invited Alexander Pope round to give a public reading of his latest poem. Pope, the leading poet of his day, was greatly surprised when Lord Halifax stopped him four or five times and said, "I beg your pardon, Mr. Pope, but there is something in that passage that does not quite please me." Pope was rendered speechless, as this fine critic suggested sizeable and unwise emendations to his latest masterpiece. "Be so good as to mark the place and consider at your leisure. I'm sure you can give it a better turn." After the reading, a good friend of Lord Halifax, a certain Dr. Garth, took the stunned Pope to one side. "There is no need to touch the lines," he said. "All you need do is leave them just as they are, call on Lord Halifax two or three months hence, thank him for his kind observation on those passages, and then read them to him as altered. I have known him much longer than you have, and will be answerable for the event." Pope took his advice, called on Lord Halifax and read the poem exactly as it was before. His unique critical faculties had lost none of their edge. "Ay", he commented, "now they are perfectly right. Nothing can be better." -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"
"I understand this is your first dead client," Sabian was saying. The absurdity of the statement made me want to laugh but they don't call me Deadpan Allie and lie. -- Pat Cadigan, "Mindplayers"
"Good afternoon, madam. How may I help you?" "Good afternoon. I'd like a FrintArms HandCannon, please." "A--? Oh, now, that's an awfully big gun for such a lovely lady. I mean, not everybody thinks ladies should carry guns at all, though I say they have a right to. But I think... I might... Let's have a look down here. I might have just the thing for you. Yes, here we are! Look at that, isn't it neat? Now that is a FrintArms product as well, but it's what's called a laser -- a light-pistol some people call them. Very small, as you see; fits easily into a pocket or bag; won't spoil the line of a jacket; and you won't feel you're lugging half a tonne of iron around with you. We do a range of matching accessories, including -- if I may say so -- a rather saucy garter holster. Wish I got to do the fitting for that! Ha -- just my little joke. And there's even... here we are -- this special presentation pack: gun, charged battery, charging unit, beautiful glider-hide shoulder holster with adjustable fitting and contrast stitching, and a discount on your next battery. Full instructions, of course, and a voucher for free lessons at your local gun club or range. Or there's the special presentation pack; it has all the other one's got but with two charged batteries and a night-sight, too. Here, feel that -- don't worry, it's a dummy battery -- isn't it neat? Feel how light it is? Smooth, see? No bits to stick out and catch on your clothes, and beautifully balanced. And of course the beauty of a laser is, there's no recoil. Because it's shooting light, you see? Beautiful gun, beautiful gun; my wife has one. Really. That's not a line, she really has. Now, I can do you that one -- with a battery and a free charge -- for ninety-five; or the presentation pack on a special offer for one-nineteen; or this, the special presentation pack, for one-forty-nine." "I'll take the special." "Sound choice, madam, sound choice. Now, do--?" "And a HandCannon, with the eighty-mill silencer, five GP clips, three six-five AP/wire-fl'echettes clips, two bipropellant HE clips, and a Special Projectile Pack if you have one -- the one with the embedding rounds, not the signalers. I assume the night-sight on this toy is compatible?" "Aah... yes, And how does madam wish to pay?" She slapped her credit card on the counter. "Eventually." -- Iain M. Banks, "Against a Dark Background"
A novice asked the master: "In the east there is a great tree-structure that men call 'Corporate Headquarters'. It is bloated out of shape with vice-presidents and accountants. It issues a multitude of memos, each saying 'Go, Hence!' or 'Go, Hither!' and nobody knows what is meant. Every year new names are put onto the branches, but all to no avail. How can such an unnatural entity exist?" The master replies: "You perceive this immense structure and are disturbed that it has no rational purpose. Can you not take amusement from its endless gyrations? Do you not enjoy the untroubled ease of programming beneath its sheltering branches? Why are you bothered by its uselessness?" -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
=== ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== Bug reports now amount to an average of 12,853 per day. Unfortunately, this is only a small fraction [ < 1% ] of the mail volume we receive. In order that we may more expeditiously deal with these valuable messages, please communicate them by one of the following paths: ARPA: WastebasketSLMHQ.ARPA UUCP: [berkeley, seismo, harpo]!fubar!thekid!slmhq!wastebasket Non-network sites: Federal Express to: Wastebasket Room NE43-926 Copernicus, The Moon, 12345-6789 For that personal contact feeling call 1-415-642-4948; our trained operators are on call 24 hours a day. VISA/MC accepted.* * Our very rich lawyers have assured us that we are not responsible for any errors or advice given over the phone.
=== ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== There has been some confusion concerning MAPCAR. (DEFUN MAPCAR (&FUNCTIONAL FCN &EVAL &REST LISTS) (PROG (V P LP) (SETQ P (LOCF V)) L (SETQ LP LISTS) (%START-FUNCTION-CALL FCN T (LENGTH LISTS) NIL) L1 (OR LP (GO L2)) (AND (NULL (CAR LP)) (RETURN V)) (%PUSH (CAAR LP)) (RPLACA LP (CDAR LP)) (SETQ LP (CDR LP)) (GO L1) L2 (%FINISH-FUNCTION-CALL FCN T (LENGTH LISTS) NIL) (SETQ LP (%POP)) (RPLACD P (SETQ P (NCONS LP))) (GO L))) We hope this clears up the many questions we've had about it.
Dear Ms. Postnews: I couldn't get mail through to somebody on another site. What should I do? -- Eager Beaver Dear Eager: No problem, just post your message to a group that a lot of people read. Say, "This is for John Smith. I couldn't get mail through so I'm posting it. All others please ignore." This way tens of thousands of people will spend a few seconds scanning over and ignoring your article, using up over 16 man-hours their collective time, but you will be saved the terrible trouble of checking through usenet maps or looking for alternate routes. Just think, if you couldn't distribute your message to 9000 other computers, you might actually have to (gasp) call directory assistance for 60 cents, or even phone the person. This can cost as much as a few DOLLARS (!) for a 5 minute call! And certainly it's better to spend 10 to 20 dollars of other people's money distributing the message than for you to have to waste $9 on an overnight letter, or even 25 cents on a stamp! Don't forget. The world will end if your message doesn't get through, so post it as many places as you can. -- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette
Mac Beer: At first, came only a 16-oz. can, but now comes in a 32-oz. can. Considered by many to be a "light" beer. All the cans look identical. When you take one from the fridge, it opens itself. The ingredients list is not on the can. If you call to ask about the ingredients, you are told that "you don't need to know." A notice on the side reminds you to drag your empties to the trashcan.
Niklaus Wirth has lamented that, whereas Europeans pronounce his name correctly (Ni-klows Virt), Americans invariably mangle it into (Nick-les Worth). Which is to say that Europeans call him by name, but Americans call him by value.
Something mysterious is formed, born in the silent void. Waiting alone and unmoving, it is at once still and yet in constant motion. It is the source of all programs. I do not know its name, so I will call it the Tao of Programming. If the Tao is great, then the operating system is great. If the operating system is great, then the compiler is great. If the compiler is greater, then the applications is great. The user is pleased and there is harmony in the world. The Tao of Programming flows far away and returns on the wind of morning. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
*** Special AI Seminar (abstract) It has been widely recognized that AI programs require expert knowledge in order to perform well in complex domains. But knowledge alone is not sufficient for some applications; wisdom is needed as well. Accordingly, we have developed a new approach to artificial intelligence which we call** "wisdom engineering". As a test of our ideas, we have written IMMANUEL, a wisdom based system for the task domain of western philosophical thought. IMMANUEL was supplied initially with 200 wisdom units which contained wisdom about such elementary concepts as mind, matter, being, nothingness, and so forth. IMMANUEL was then allowed to run freely, guided by the heuristic rules contained in its heterarchically organized meta wisdom base. IMMANUEL succeeded in rediscovering most of the important philosophical ideas developed in western culture over the course of the last 25 centuries, including those underlying Plato's theory of government, Kant's metaphysics, Nietzsche's theory of value, and Husserl's phenomenology. In this seminar, we will describe IMMANUEL's achievements and internal architecture. We will also briefly discuss our recent efforts to apply wisdom engineering to oil exploration.
Still a few bugs in the system... Someday I have to tell you about Uncle Nahum from Maine, who spent years trying to cross a jellyfish with a shad so he could breed boneless shad. His experiment backfired too, and he wound up with bony jellyfish... which was hardly worth the trouble. There's very little call for those up there. -- Allucquere R. "Sandy" Stone
"That's right; the upper-case shift works fine on the screen, but they're not coming out on the damn printer... Hold? Sure, I'll hold." -- e.e. cummings last service call
Two hundred years ago today, Irma Chine of White Plains, New York, was performing her normal housekeeping routines. She was interrupted by British soldiers who, rallying to the call of their supervisor, General Hughes, sought to gain control of the voter registration lists kept in her home. Masking her fear and thinking fast, Mrs. Chine quickly divided a nearby apple in two and deftly stored the list in its center. Upon entering, the British blatantly violated every conceivable convention, and, though they went through the house virtually bit by bit, their search was fruitless. They had to return empty handed. Word of the incident propagated rapidly through the region. This historic event became the first documented use of core storage for the saving of registers.
"Uncle Cosmo ... why do they call this a word processor?" "It's simple, Skyler ... you've seen what food processors do to food, right?" -- MacNelley, "Shoe"
UNIX Trix For those of you in the reseller business, here is a helpful tip that will save your support staff a few hours of precious time. Before you send your next machine out to an untrained client, change the permissions on /etc/passwd to 666 and make sure there is a copy somewhere on the disk. Now when they forget the root password, you can easily login as an ordinary user and correct the damage. Having a bootable tape (for larger machines) is not a bad idea either. If you need some help, give us a call. -- CommUNIXque 1:1, ASCAR Business Systems
"We invented a new protocol and called it Kermit, after Kermit the Frog, star of "The Muppet Show." [3] [3] Why? Mostly because there was a Muppets calendar on the wall when we were trying to think of a name, and Kermit is a pleasant, unassuming sort of character. But since we weren't sure whether it was OK to name our protocol after this popular television and movie star, we pretended that KERMIT was an acronym; unfortunately, we could never find a good set of words to go with the letters, as readers of some of our early source code can attest. Later, while looking through a name book for his forthcoming baby, Bill Catchings noticed that "Kermit" was a Celtic word for "free", which is what all Kermit programs should be, and words to this effect replaced the strained acronyms in our source code (Bill's baby turned out to be a girl, so he had to name her Becky instead). When BYTE Magazine was preparing our 1984 Kermit article for publication, they suggested we contact Henson Associates Inc. for permission to say that we did indeed name the protocol after Kermit the Frog. Permission was kindly granted, and now the real story can be told. I resisted the temptation, however, to call the present work "Kermit the Book." -- Frank da Cruz, "Kermit - A File Transfer Protocol"
Welcome to UNIX! Enjoy your session! Have a great time! Note the use of exclamation points! They are a very effective method for demonstrating excitement, and can also spice up an otherwise plain-looking sentence! However, there are drawbacks! Too much unnecessary exclaiming can lead to a reduction in the effect that an exclamation point has on the reader! For example, the sentence Jane went to the store to buy bread should only be ended with an exclamation point if there is something sensational about her going to the store, for example, if Jane is a cocker spaniel or if Jane is on a diet that doesn't allow bread or if Jane doesn't exist for some reason! See how easy it is?! Proper control of exclamation points can add new meaning to your life! Call now to receive my free pamphlet, "The Wonder and Mystery of the Exclamation Point!"! Enclose fifteen(!) dollars for postage and handling! Operators are standing by! (Which is pretty amazing, because they're all cocker spaniels!)
"What's that thing?" "Well, it's a highly technical, sensitive instrument we use in computer repair. Being a layman, you probably can't grasp exactly what it does. We call it a two-by-four." -- Jeff MacNelley, "Shoe"
Wings of OS/400: The airline has bought ancient DC-3s, arguably the best and safest planes that ever flew, and painted "747" on their tails to make them look as if they are fast. The flight attendants, of course, attend to your every need, though the drinks cost $15 a pop. Stupid questions cost $230 per hour, unless you have SupportLine, which requires a first class ticket and membership in the frequent flyer club. Then they cost $500, but your accounting department can call it overhead.
Call on God, but row away from the rocks. -- Indian proverb
Whom the gods wish to destroy they first call promising.
"IBM uses what I like to call the 'hole-in-the-ground technique' to destroy the competition..... IBM digs a big HOLE in the ground and covers it with leaves. It then puts a big POT OF GOLD nearby. Then it gives the call, 'Hey, look at all this gold, get over here fast.' As soon as the competitor approaches the pot, he falls into the pit" - John C. Dvorak
You may call me by my name, Wirth, or by my value, Worth. - Nicklaus Wirth
Most people exhibit what political scientists call "the conservatism of the peasantry." Don't lose what you've got. Don't change. Don't take a chance, because you might end up starving to death. Play it safe. Buy just as much as you need. Don't waste time. When we think about risk, human beings and corporations realize in their heads that risks are necessary to grow, to survive. But when it comes down to keeping good people when the crunch comes, or investing money in something untried, only the brave reach deep into their pockets and play the game as it must be played. - David Lammers, "Yakitori", Electronic Engineering Times, January 18, 1988
Evolution is as much a fact as the earth turning on its axis and going around the sun. At one time this was called the Copernican theory; but, when evidence for a theory becomes so overwhelming that no informed person can doubt it, it is customary for scientists to call it a fact. That all present life descended from earlier forms, over vast stretches of geologic time, is as firmly established as Copernican cosmology. Biologists differ only with respect to theories about how the process operates. - Martin Gardner, "Irving Kristol and the Facts of Life", The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII No. 2, ppg. 128-131
However, on religious issures there can be little or no compromise. There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God's name on one's behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in "A," "B," "C," and "D." Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of "conservatism." - Senator Barry Goldwater, from the Congressional Record, September 16, 1981
"Hi, I'm Professor Alan Ginsburg... But you can call me... Captain Toke." -- John Lovitz, as ex-Supreme Court nominee Alan Ginsburg, on SNL
"And kids... learn something from Susie and Eddie. If you think there's a maniacal psycho-geek in the basement: 1) Don't give him a chance to hit you on the head with an axe! 2) Flee the premises... even if you're in your underwear. 3) Warn the neighbors and call the police. But whatever else you do... DON'T GO DOWN IN THE DAMN BASEMENT!" -- Saturday Night Live meets Friday the 13th
"...I could accept this openness, glasnost, perestroika, or whatever you want to call it if they did these things: abolish the one party system; open the Soviet frontier and allow Soviet people to travel freely; allow the Soviet people to have real free enterprise; allow Western businessmen to do business there, and permit freedom of speech and of the press. But so far, the whole country is like a concentration camp. The barbed wire on the fence around the Soviet Union is to keep people inside, in the dark. This openness that you are seeing, all these changes, are cosmetic and they have been designed to impress shortsighted, naive, sometimes stupid Western leaders. These leaders gush over Gorbachev, hoping to do business with the Soviet Union or appease it. He will say: "Yes, we can do business!" This while his military machine in Afghanistan has killed over a million people out of a population of 17 million. Can you imagine that? -- Victor Belenko, MiG-25 fighter pilot who defected in 1976 "Defense Electronics", Vol 20, No. 6, pg. 110
A comment on schedules: Ok, how long will it take? For each manager involved in initial meetings add one month. For each manager who says "data flow analysis" add another month. For each unique end-user type add one month. For each unknown software package to be employed add two months. For each unknown hardware device add two months. For each 100 miles between developer and installation add one month. For each type of communication channel add one month. If an IBM mainframe shop is involved and you are working on a non-IBM system add 6 months. If an IBM mainframe shop is involved and you are working on an IBM system add 9 months. Round up to the nearest half-year. --Brad Sherman By the way, ALL software projects are done by iterative prototyping. Some companies call their prototypes "releases", that's all.
"Call immediately. Time is running out. We both need to do something monstrous before we die." -- Message from Ralph Steadman to Hunter Thompson
"I call Christianity the one great curse, the one great intrinsic depravity, the one great instinct for revenge for which no expedient is sufficiently poisonous, secret, subterranean, petty -- I call it the one mortal blemish of mankind." -- Friedrich Nietzsche
Everyone who comes in here wants three things: 1. They want it quick. 2. They want it good. 3. They want it cheap. I tell 'em to pick two and call me back. -- sign on the back wall of a small printing company in Delaware
Got a complaint about the Internal Revenue Service? Call the convenient toll-free "IRS Taxpayer Complaint Hot Line Number": 1-800-AUDITME
If society fits you comfortably enough, you call it freedom. -- Robert Frost
Know thyself. If you need help, call the C.I.A.
The Minnesota Board of Education voted to consider requiring all students to do some "volunteer work" as a prerequisite to high school graduation. Senator Orrin Hatch said that "capital punishment is our society's recognition of the sanctity of human life." According to the tax bill signed by President Reagan on December 22, 1987, Don Tyson and his sister-in-law Barbara run a "family farm." Their "farm" has 25,000 employees and grosses $1.7 billion a year. But as a "family farm" they get tax breaks that save them $135 million a year. Scott L. Pickard, spokesperson for the Massachusetts Department of Public Works, calls them "ground-mounted confirmatory route markers." You probably call them road signs, but then you don't work in a government agency. It's not "elderly" or "senior citizens" anymore. Now it's "chrono- logically experienced citizens." According to the FAA, the propeller blade didn't break off, it was just a case of "uncontained blade liberation." -- Quarterly Review of Doublespeak (NCTE)
The Worst Prison Guards The largest number of convicts ever to escape simultaneously from a maximum security prison is 124. This record is held by Alcoente Prison, near Lisbon in Portugal. During the weeks leading up to the escape in July 1978 the prison warders had noticed that attendances had fallen at film shows which included "The Great Escape", and also that 220 knives and a huge quantity of electric cable had disappeared. A guard explained, "Yes, we were planning to look for them, but never got around to it." The warders had not, however, noticed the gaping holes in the wall because they were "covered with posters". Nor did they detect any of the spades, chisels, water hoses and electric drills amassed by the inmates in large quantities. The night before the breakout one guard had noticed that of the 36 prisoners in his block only 13 were present. He said this was "normal" because inmates sometimes missed roll-call or hid, but usually came back the next morning. "We only found out about the escape at 6:30 the next morning when one of the prisoners told us," a warder said later. [...] When they eventually checked, the prison guards found that exactly half of the gaol's population was missing. By way of explanation the Justice Minister, Dr. Santos Pais, claimed that the escape was "normal" and part of the "legitimate desire of the prisoner to regain his liberty." -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"
They call them "squares" because it's the most complicated shape they can deal with.
"They make a desert and call it peace." -- Tacitus (55?-120?)
feature, n: A surprising property of a program. Occasionaly documented. To call a property a feature sometimes means the author did not consider that case, and the program makes an unexpected, though not necessarily wrong response. See BUG. "That's not a bug, it's a feature!" A bug can be changed to a feature by documenting it.
guru, n.: A person in T-shirt and sandals who took an elevator ride with a senior vice-president and is ultimately responsible for the phone call you are about to receive from your boss.
HOW YOU CAN TELL THAT IT'S GOING TO BE A ROTTEN DAY: #32: You call your answering service and they've never heard of you.
Information Processing: What you call data processing when people are so disgusted with it they won't let it be discussed in their presence.
Lawyer's Rule: When the law is against you, argue the facts. When the facts are against you, argue the law. When both are against you, call the other lawyer names.
lisp, v.: To call a spade a thpade.
program, n.: Any task that can't be completed in one telephone call or one day. Once a task is defined as a program ("training program," "sales program," or "marketing program"), its implementation always justifies hiring at least three more people.
QOTD: "I haven't come far enough, and don't call me baby."
QOTD: "I won't say he's untruthful, but his wife has to call the dog for dinner."
QOTD: "What women and psychologists call `dropping your armor', we call "baring your neck."
Poverty Jet Set: A group of people given to chronic traveling at the expense of long-term job stability or a permanent residence. Tend to have doomed and extremely expensive phone-call relationships with people named Serge or Ilyana. Tend to discuss frequent-flyer programs at parties. -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
A reverend wanted to telephone another reverend. He told the operator, "This is a parson to parson call."
Operator, please trace this call and tell me where I am.
Phone call for chucky-pooh.
Coach: What would you say to a beer, Normie? Norm: Daddy wuvs you. -- Cheers, The Mail Goes to Jail Sam: What'd you like, Normie? Norm: A reason to live. Gimme another beer. -- Cheers, Behind Every Great Man Sam: What will you have, Norm? Norm: Well, I'm in a gambling mood, Sammy. I'll take a glass of whatever comes out of that tap. Sam: Oh, looks like beer, Norm. Norm: Call me Mister Lucky. -- Cheers, The Executive's Executioner
[Norm tries to prove that he is not Anton Kreitzer.] Norm: Afternoon, everybody! All: Anton! -- Cheers, The Two Faces of Norm Woody: What's going on, Mr. Peterson? Norm: A flashing sign in my gut that says, ``Insert beer here.'' -- Cheers, Call Me, Irresponsible Sam: What can I get you, Norm? Norm: [scratching his beard] Got any flea powder? Ah, just kidding. Gimme a beer; I think I'll just drown the little suckers. -- Cheers, Two Girls for Every Boyd
Q: What do they call the alphabet in Arkansas? A: The impossible dream.
Q: What do you call 15 blondes in a circle? A: A dope ring. Q: Why do blondes put their hair in ponytails? A: To cover up the valve stem.
Q: What do you call a blind pre-historic animal? A: Diyathinkhesaurus. Q: What do you call a blind pre-historic animal with a dog? A: Diyathinkhesaurus Rex.
Q: What do you call a blind, deaf-mute, quadraplegic Virginian? A: Trustworthy.
Q: What do you call a boomerang that doesn't come back? A: A stick.
Q: What do you call a half-dozen Indians with Asian flu? A: Six sick Sikhs (sic).
Q: What do you call a principal female opera singer whose high C is lower than those of other principal female opera singers? A: A deep C diva.
Q: What do you call a WASP who doesn't work for his father, isn't a lawyer, and believes in social causes? A: A failure.
Q: What do you call the money you pay to the government when you ride into the country on the back of an elephant? A: A howdah duty.
Q: What do you call the scratches that you get when a female sheep bites you? A: Ewe nicks.
Q: Why did the programmer call his mother long distance? A: Because that was her name.
A reader reports that when the patient died, the attending doctor recorded the following on the patient's chart: "Patient failed to fulfill his wellness potential." Another doctor reports that in a recent issue of the American Journal of Family Practice fleas were called "hematophagous arthropod vectors." A reader reports that the Army calls them "vertically deployed anti- personnel devices." You probably call them bombs. At McClellan Air Force base in Sacramento, California, civilian mechanics were placed on "non-duty, non-pay status." That is, they were fired. After taking the trip of a lifetime, our reader sent his twelve rolls of film to Kodak for developing (or "processing," as Kodak likes to call it) only to receive the following notice: "We must report that during the handling of your twelve 35mm Kodachrome slide orders, the films were involved in an unusual laboratory experience." The use of the passive is a particularly nice touch, don't you think? Nobody did anything to the films; they just had a bad experience. Of course our reader can always go back to Tibet and take his pictures all over again, using the twelve replacement rolls Kodak so generously sent him. -- Quarterly Review of Doublespeak (NCTE)
"We're running out of adjectives to describe our situation. We had crisis, then we went into chaos, and now what do we call this?" said Nicaraguan economist Francisco Mayorga, who holds a doctorate from Yale. -- The Washington Post, February, 1988 The New Yorker's comment: At Harvard they'd call it a noun.
Most Texans think Hanukkah is some sort of duck call. -- Richard Lewis
And this is a table ma'am. What in essence it consists of is a horizontal rectilinear plane surface maintained by four vertical columnar supports, which we call legs. The tables in this laboratory, ma'am, are as advanced in design as one will find anywhere in the world. -- Michael Frayn, "The Tin Men"
Evolution is as much a fact as the earth turning on its axis and going around the sun. At one time this was called the Copernican theory; but, when evidence for a theory becomes so overwhelming that no informed person can doubt it, it is customary for scientists to call it a fact. That all present life descended from earlier forms, over vast stretches of geologic time, is as firmly established as Copernican cosmology. Biologists differ only with respect to theories about how the process operates. -- Martin Gardner, "Irving Kristol and the Facts of Life".
Florence Flask was ... dressing for the opera when she turned to her husband and screamed, "Erlenmeyer! My joules! Someone has stolen my joules!" "Now, now, my dear," replied her husband, "keep your balance and reflux a moment. Perhaps they're mislead." "No, I know they're stolen," cried Florence. "I remember putting them in my burette ... We must call a copper." Erlenmeyer did so, and the flatfoot who turned up, one Sherlock Ohms, said the outrage looked like the work of an arch-criminal by the name of Lawrence Ium. "We must be careful -- he's a free radical, ultraviolet, and dangerous. His girlfriend is a chlorine at the Palladium. Maybe I can catch him there." With that, he jumped on his carbon cycle in an activated state and sped off along the reaction pathway ... -- Daniel B. Murphy, "Precipitations"
FORTUNE'S GUIDE TO DEALING WITH REAL-LIFE SCIENCE FICTION: #2 What to do... if you get a phone call from Mars: Speak slowly and be sure to enunciate your words properly. Limit your vocabulary to simple words. Try to determine if you are speaking to someone in a leadership capacity, or an ordinary citizen. if he, she or it doesn't speak English? Hang up. There's no sense in trying to learn Martian over the phone. If your Martian really had something important to say to you, he, she or it would have taken the trouble to learn the language before calling. if you get a phone call from Jupiter? Explain to your caller, politely but firmly, that being from Jupiter, he, she or it is not "life as we know it". Try to terminate the conversation as soon as possible. It will not profit you, and the charges may have been reversed.
Got Mole problems? Call Avogadro at 6.02 x 10^23.
I do hate sums. There is no greater mistake than to call arithmetic an exact science. There are permutations and aberrations discernible to minds entirely noble like mine; subtle variations which ordinary accountants fail to discover; hidden laws of number which it requires a mind like mine to perceive. For instance, if you add a sum from the bottom up, and then again from the top down, the result is always different. -- Mrs. La Touche
Lucas is the source of many of the components of the legendarily reliable British automotive electrical systems. Professionals call the company "The Prince of Darkness". Of course, if Lucas were to design and manufacture nuclear weapons, World War III would never get off the ground. The British don't like warm beer any more than the Americans do. The British drink warm beer because they have Lucas refrigerators.
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Two men are in a hot-air balloon. Soon, they find themselves lost in a canyon somewhere. One of the three men says, "I've got an idea. We can call for help in this canyon and the echo will carry our voices to the end of the canyon. Someone's bound to hear us by then!" So he leans over the basket and screams out, "Helllloooooo! Where are we?" (They hear the echo several times). Fifteen minutes later, they hear this echoing voice: "Helllloooooo! You're lost!" The shouter comments, "That must have been a mathematician." Puzzled, his friend asks, "Why do you say that?" "For three reasons. First, he took a long time to answer, second, he was absolutely correct, and, third, his answer was absolutely useless."
We are sorry. We cannot complete your call as dialed. Please check the number and dial again or ask your operator for assistance. This is a recording.
Lobster: Everyone loves these delectable crustaceans, but many cooks are squeamish about placing them into boiling water alive, which is the only proper method of preparing them. Frankly, the easiest way to eliminate your guilt is to establish theirs by putting them on trial before they're cooked. The fact is, lobsters are among the most ferocious predators on the sea floor, and you're helping reduce crime in the reefs. Grasp the lobster behind the head, look it right in its unmistakably guilty eyestalks and say, "Where were you on the night of the 21st?", then flourish a picture of a scallop or a sole and shout, "Perhaps this will refresh that crude neural apparatus you call a memory!" The lobster will squirm noticeably. It may even take a swipe at you with one of its claws. Incorrigible. Pop it into the pot. Justice has been served, and shortly you and your friends will be, too. -- Dave Barry, "Cooking: The Art of Using Appliances and Utensils into Excuses and Apologies"
There are three possible parts to a date, of which at least two must be offered: entertainment, food, and affection. It is customary to begin a series of dates with a great deal of entertainment, a moderate amount of food, and the merest suggestion of affection. As the amount of affection increases, the entertainment can be reduced proportionately. When the affection IS the entertainment, we no longer call it dating. Under no circumstances can the food be omitted. -- Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behaviour
This is Betty Frenel. I don't know who to call but I can't reach my Food-a-holics partner. I'm at Vido's on my second pizza with sausage and mushroom. Jim, come and get me!
Why do they call a fast a fast, when it goes so slow?
Easy come and easy go, some call me easy money, Sometimes life is full of laughs, and sometimes it ain't funny You may think that I'm a fool and sometimes that is true, But I'm goin' to heaven in a flash of fire, with or without you. -- Hoyt Axton
Farewell we call to hearth and hall! Though wind may blow and rain may fall, We must away ere break of day Far over wood and mountain tall. To Rivendell, where Elves yet dwell In glades beneath the misty fell, Through moor and waste we ride in haste, And whither then we cannot tell. With foes ahead, behind us dread, Beneath the sky shall be our bed, Until at last our toil be passed, Our journey done, our errand sped. We must away! We must away! We ride before the break of day! -- J. R. R. Tolkien
Gimme Twinkies, gimme wine, Gimme jeans by Calvin Kline ... But if you split those atoms fine, Mama keep 'em off those genes of mine! Gimme zits, take my dough, Gimme arsenic in my jelly roll ... Call the devil and sell my soul, But Mama keep dem atoms whole! -- Milo Bloom, "The Split-Atom Blues," in "Bloom County"
God rest ye CS students now, The bearings on the drum are gone, Let nothing you dismay. The disk is wobbling, too. The VAX is down and won't be up, We've found a bug in Lisp, and Algol Until the first of May. Can't tell false from true. The program that was due this morn, And now we find that we can't get Won't be postponed, they say. At Berkeley's 4.2. (chorus) (chorus) We've just received a call from DEC, And now some cheery news for you, They'll send without delay The network's also dead, A monitor called RSuX We'll have to print your files on It takes nine hundred K. The line printer instead. The staff committed suicide, The turnaround time's nineteen weeks. We'll bury them today. And only cards are read. (chorus) (chorus) And now we'd like to say to you CHORUS: Oh, tidings of comfort and joy, Before we go away, Comfort and joy, We hope the news we've brought to you Oh, tidings of comfort and joy. Won't ruin your whole day. You've got another program due, tomorrow, by the way. (chorus) -- to God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
I'll learn to play the Saxophone, I play just what I feel. Drink Scotch whisky all night long, And die behind the wheel. They got a name for the winners in the world, I want a name when I lose. They call Alabama the Crimson Tide, Call me Deacon Blues. -- Becker and Fagan, "Deacon Blues"
"Oh, 'Melia, my dear, this does everything crown! Who could have supposed I should meet you in Town? And whence such fair garments such prosperi-ty?" "Oh, didn't you know I'd been ruined?" said she. "You left us in tatters, without shoes or socks, Tired of digging potatoes, and spudding up docks; And now you've gay bracelets and bright feathers three!" "Yes: That's how we dress when we're ruined," said she. "At home in the barton you said `thee' and `thou,' And `thik oon' and `theas oon' and `t'other;' but now Your talking quite fits 'ee for compa-ny!" "Some polish is gained with one's ruin," said she. "Your hands were like paws then, your face blue and bleak But now I'm bewitched by your delicate cheek, And your little gloves fit like as on any la-dy!" "We never do work when we're ruined," said she. "You used to call home-life a hag-ridden dream, And you'd sigh, and you'd sock; but at present you seem To know not of megrims or melancho-ly!" "True. One's pretty lively when ruined," said she. "I wish I had feathers, a fine sweeping gown, And a delicate face, and could strut about Town!" "My dear--a raw country girl, such as you be, Cannot quite expect that. You ain't ruined," said she. --Thomas Hardy
One pill makes you larger, And if you go chasing rabbits And one pill makes you small. And you know you're going to fall. And the ones that mother gives you, Tell 'em a hookah smoking caterpillar Don't do anything at all. Has given you the call. Go ask Alice Call Alice When she's ten feet tall. When she was just small. When men on the chessboard When logic and proportion Get up and tell you where to go. Have fallen sloppy dead, And you've just had some kind of And the White Knight is talking mushroom backwards And your mind is moving low. And the Red Queen's lost her head Go ask Alice Remember what the dormouse said: I think she'll know. Feed your head. Feed your head. Feed your head. -- Jefferson Airplane, "White Rabbit"
Picking up the pieces of my sweet shattered dream, I wonder how the old folks are tonight, Her name was Ann, and I'll be damned if I recall her face, She left me not knowing what to do. Carefree Highway, let me slip away on you, Carefree Highway, you seen better days, The morning after blues, from my head down to my shoes, Carefree Highway, let me slip away, slip away, on you... Turning back the pages to the times I love best, I wonder if she'll ever do the same, Now the thing that I call livin' is just bein' satisfied, With knowing I got noone left to blame. Carefree Highway, I got to see you, my old flame... Searching through the fragments of my dream shattered sleep, I wonder if the years have closed her mind, I guess it must be wanderlust or tryin' to get free, From the good old faithful feelin' we once knew. -- Gordon Lightfoot, "Carefree Highway"
Plagiarize, plagiarize, Let no man's work evade your eyes, Remember why the good Lord made your eyes, Don't shade your eyes, But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize. Only be sure to call it research. -- Tom Lehrer
Tell me, O Octopus, I begs, Is those things arms, or is they legs? I marvel at thee, Octopus; If I were thou, I'd call me us. -- Ogden Nash
The Poet Whose Badness Saved His Life The most important poet in the seventeenth century was George Wither. Alexander Pope called him "wretched Wither" and Dryden said of his verse that "if they rhymed and rattled all was well". In our own time, "The Dictionary of National Biography" notes that his work "is mainly remarkable for its mass, fluidity and flatness. It usually lacks any genuine literary quality and often sinks into imbecile doggerel". High praise, indeed, and it may tempt you to savour a typically rewarding stanza: It is taken from "I loved a lass" and is concerned with the higher emotions. She would me "Honey" call, She'd -- O she'd kiss me too. But now alas! She's left me Falero, lero, loo. Among other details of his mistress which he chose to immortalize was her prudent choice of footwear. The fives did fit her shoe. In 1639 the great poet's life was endangered after his capture by the Royalists during the English Civil War. When Sir John Denham, the Royalist poet, heard of Wither's imminent execution, he went to the King and begged that his life be spared. When asked his reason, Sir John replied, "Because that so long as Wither lived, Denham would not be accounted the worst poet in England." -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"
Wake up all you citizens, hear your country's call, Not to arms and violence, But peace for one and all. Crush out hate and prejudice, fear and greed and sin, Help bring back her dignity, restore her faith again. Work hard for a common cause, don't let our country fall. Make her proud and strong again, democracy for all. Yes, make our country strong again, keep our flag unfurled. Make our country well again, respected by the world. Make her whole and beautiful, work from sun to sun. Stand tall and labor side by side, because there's so much to be done. Yes, make her whole and beautiful, united strong and free, Wake up, all you citizens, It's up to you and me. -- Pansy Myers Schroeder
We don't need no indirection We don't need no compilation We don't need no flow control We don't need no load control No data typing or declarations No link edit for external bindings Hey! did you leave the lists alone? Hey! did you leave that source alone? Chorus: (Chorus) Oh No. It's just a pure LISP function call. We don't need no side-effecting We don't need no allocation We don't need no flow control We don't need no special-nodes No global variables for execution No dark bit-flipping for debugging Hey! did you leave the args alone? Hey! did you leave those bits alone? (Chorus) (Chorus) -- "Another Glitch in the Call", a la Pink Floyd
When you get what you want in your struggle for self And the world makes you king for a day, Just go to a mirror and look at yourself And see what that man has to say. For it isn't your father or mother or wife Whose judgement upon you must pass; The fellow whose verdict counts most in your life Is the one staring back from the glass. Some people may think you a straight-shootin' chum And call you a wonderful guy, But the man in the glass says you're only a bum If you can't look him straight in the eye. He's the fellow to please, never mind all the rest, For he's with you clear up to the end, And you've passed your most dangerous, difficult test If the man in the glass is your friend. You may fool the whole world down the pathway of life And get pats on the back as you pass, But your final reward will be heartaches and tears If you've cheated the man in the glass.
Woke up this morning, don't believe what I saw. Hundred billion bottles washed up on the shore. Seems I'm not alone in being alone. Hundred billion castaways looking for a call. -- The Police, "Message in a Bottle"
There was a phone call for you.
In Africa some of the native tribes have a custom of beating the ground with clubs and uttering spine chilling cries. Anthropologists call this a form of primitive self-expression. In America we call it golf.
To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and, whatever you hit, call it the target.
We was playin' the Homestead Grays in the city of Pitchburgh. Josh [Gibson] comes up in the last of the ninth with a man on and us a run behind. Well, he hit one. The Grays waited around and waited around, but finally the empire rules it ain't comin' down. So we win. The next day, we was disputin' the Grays in Philadelphia when here come a ball outta the sky right in the glove of the Grays' center fielder. The empire made the only possible call. "You're out, boy!" he says to Josh. "Yesterday, in Pitchburgh." -- Satchel Paige
You'll learn something about men and women -- the way they're supposed to be. Caring for each other, being happy with each other, being good to each other. That's what we call love. You'll like that a lot. -- Kirk, "The Apple", stardate 3715.6
"`...You hadn't exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them had you? I mean like actually telling anyone or anything.' `But the plans were on display...' `On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.' `That's the display department.' `With a torch.' `Ah, well the lights had probably gone.' `So had the stairs.' `But look you found the notice didn't you?' `Yes,' said Arthur, `yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying "Beware of The Leopard".'" - Arthur singing the praises of the local council planning department.
"`I think you ought to know that I'm feeling very depressed.'" "`Life, don't talk to me about life.'" "`Here I am, brain the size of a planet and they ask me to take you down to the bridge. Call that "job satisfaction"? 'Cos I don't.'" "`I've got this terrible pain in all the diodes down my left side.'" - Guess who.
"`Maybe somebody here tipped off the Galactic Police,' said Trillian. `Everybody saw you come in.' `You mean they want to arrest me over the phone?' said Zaphod, `Could be. I'm a pretty dangerous dude when I'm cornered.' `Yeah,' said a voice from under the table [Ford's now completely rat- arsed at this point], `you go to pieces so fast people get hit by the shrapnel.'" - Zaphod getting paranoid over a phone call.
I have a box of telephone rings under my bed. Whenever I get lonely, I open it up a little bit, and I get a phone call. One day I dropped the box all over the floor. The phone wouldn't stop ringing. I had to get it disconnected. So I got a new phone. I didn't have much money, so I had to get an irregular. It doesn't have a five. I ran into a friend of mine on the street the other day. He said why don't you give me a call. I told him I can't call everybody I want to anymore, my phone doesn't have a five. He asked how long had it been that way. I said I didn't know -- my calendar doesn't have any sevens. -- Steven Wright
I have a dog; I named him Stay. So when I'd go to call him, I'd say, "Here, Stay, here..." but he got wise to that. Now when I call him he ignores me and just keeps on typing. -- Steven Wright
I have a switch in my apartment that doesn't do anything. Every once in a while I turn it on and off. On and off. On and off. One day I got a call from a woman in France who said "Cut it out!" -- Steven Wright
If you throw a New Year's Party, the worst thing that you can do would be to throw the kind of party where your guests wake up today, and call you to say they had a nice time. Now you'll be be expected to throw another party next year. What you should do is throw the kind of party where your guest wake up several days from now and call their lawyers to find out if they've been indicted for anything. You want your guests to be so anxious to avoid a recurrence of your party that they immediately start planning parties of their own, a year in advance, just to prevent you from having another one ... If your party is successful, the police will knock on your door, unless your party is very successful in which case they will lob tear gas through your living room window. As host, your job is to make sure that they don't arrest anybody. Or if they're dead set on arresting someone, your job is to make sure it isn't you ... -- Dave Barry
FORTUNE'S RANDOM QUOTES FROM MATCH GAME 75, NO. 1: Gene Rayburn: We'd like to close with a thought for the day, friends --- something ... Someone: (interrupting) Uh-oh Gene Rayburn: ...pithy, full of wisdom --- and we call on the Poet Laureate, Lipsy Russell Lipsy Russell: The young people are very different today, and there is one sure way to know: Kids to use to ask where they came from, now they'll tell you where you can go. All: (laughter)
What If Bill Gates Was a Stand-Up Comedian? 1. None of his jokes would be funny. 2. Subliminal message hyping Microsoft and Windows 98 would be inserted throughout his performance. 3. The audio system (running Windows NT) would always crash right before Bill got to a punch line. At that time one of the managers would announce, "Please hold tight while we diagnose this intermittent issue." 4. Tickets for Bill's show would be handed out for free in an attempt to attract customers away from Netscape's shows. 5. Industry pundits would call Bill's show "innovative" and would ask "Why doesn't IBM have a stand-up routine? This is exactly why OS/2 is failing in the market." 6. Bill's show would be called "ActiveHumor 98" 7. In a perfect imitation of his Windows 95 OS, Bill wouldn't be able to tell a joke and walk around at the same time. 8. Audience members would have to sign a License Agreement in which one of the terms is "I agree never to watch Linus Torvalds' show, 'GNU/Humorux'". 9. All audience members would receive a free CD of Internet Explorer 4.0, with FakeJava(R) and ActiveHex(tm) technology. 10. Bill Gates would appear on Saturday Night Live, causing ratings to drop even further.
Windows 95 has been operating for 2 hours, 32 minutes. No errors reported. CALL GUINESS BOOK OF WORLD RECORDS NOW!
Q: What do you call 50 Microsoft products at the bottom of the ocean? A: A darned good start.
It's no wonder they call it WinNT; WNT = VMS++; -- Chris Abbey
Peace, Love and Compile the kernel... -- Justin L. Herreman
Stallman's Latest Proclamation Richard M. Stallman doesn't want you to say "Windows" anymore. He is now advocating that people call this OS by its real name: Microsoft-Xerox-Apple-Windows. This proclamation comes on the heels of his controversial stand that Linux should be called GNU/Linux. RMS explained in a Usenet posting, "Calling Microsoft's OS 'Windows' is a grave inaccuracy. Xerox and Apple both contributed significant ideas and innovations to this OS. Why should Microsoft get all the credit?" RMS also hinted that people shouldn't refer to Microsoft's web browser as IE. "It should really be called Microsoft-Spyglass-Mosaic-Internet-Explorer. Again, how much credit does Microsoft really deserve for this product? Much of the base code was licensed from Spyglass." Many industry pundits are less than thrilled about RMS' proclamation. The editor of Windows Magazine exclaimed, "What?!?! Yeah, we'll rename our magazine Microsoft-Xerox-Apple-Windows Magazine. That just rolls off the tongue!" A Ziff-Davis columnist noted, "Think of all the wasted space this would cause. If we spelled out everything like this, we'd have headlines like, 'Microsoft Releases Service Pack 5 for Microsoft-Xerox-Apple-Windows Neutered Technology 4.0' Clearly this is unacceptable."
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The War Against Linux A significant obstacle on the path to Linux World Domination has emerged. A reactionary grass-roots movement has formed to fight, as they call it, "The War Against Linux". This movement, code-named "LinSux", is composed of people (mostly Microsoft stockholders and commercial software developers) who want to maintain the status quo. They are fighting back against the rise of Linux and free software which they see as a threat to their financial independence. The most damaging attack the LinSux folks have launched is "Three Mile Island", a Windows macro virus designed to inflict damage on computers that contain a partition devoted to a non-Microsoft OS. When the victim computer is booted into Windows, the virus activates and deletes any non-Microsoft partitions. Ironically, the many security flaws in Windows allow the virus to damage alternative operating systems but leave Windows unscathed. "The War Against Linux" has also been fought in more subtle ways. Time-tested methods of Linux advocacy have been turned into subtle forms of anti-Linux advocacy by the LinSux crowd. MSCEs are smuggling NT boxes into companies that predominantly use Linux or Unix. LinSux "freedom fighters" are rearranging books and software boxes on store shelves so that Microsoft offerings are displayed more prominently.
Boston Software Party BOSTON, MA -- Thousands of disgruntled Linux revolutionaries showed up at the Boston Harbor today to protest "taxation without representation" by the oppressive Microsoft Corporation. Thousands of pounds of Microsoft boxes, CD-ROMs, manuals, license agreements, promotional materials, and registration forms were dumped into the harbor during the First Annual Boston Software Party. Some attendees sold hastily printed T-shirts with slogans like "July 4th, 1999: Microsoft Independence Day!" and "What do you call 10,000 pounds of Microsoft software at the bottom of the ocean? A darned good start!" Others sold fake dollar bills with a portrait of Tux Penguin and the saying, "In Linus We Trust"...
Don't get too ecstatic, we all know what's going to happen next. This so-called trial is rigged, just like wrestling and boxing. Microsoft is the Don King of the software industry... they control who wins. I've been told that if you call Microsoft's legal department hotline, you get a recorded messages that says, "For the verdicts of past Microsoft court cases, press 1. For the verdicts of future Microsoft court cases, press 2..." -- Anonymous Coward's response to Judge Jackson's harsh Findings Of Fact against Microsoft
Another Satisfied MICROSOFT Customer... +----------+ As the inventor of the Internet, I know a \| \| quality server operating system when I see \| SMILING \| one. Microsoft Windows 2000(tm) provides \| \| innovative features that no other competitor \| GORE \| can claim. \| \| \| PHOTO \| We've been using Windows at the White House \| \| for five years now without any problems. \| \| Windows' BlueScreen(tm) technology +----------+ automatically crashes our Exchange(tm) email server whenever Federal investigators are Al Gore around. Thanks to this feature, archives of incriminating emails have been wiped clean. This is what I call innovation. Thank you, Microsoft!
NEW YORK -- Publishers from all across the country met this week at the first annual Book Publishers Assocation of America (BPAA) meeting. Many of the booths on the showroom floor were devoted to the single most important issue facing the publishing industry: fighting copyright violations. From "End Reader License Agreements" to age-decaying ink, the anti-copying market has exploded into a multi-million dollar enterprise. "How can authors and publishers hope to make ends meet when the country is rapidly filling with evil libraries that distribute our products for free to the general public?" asked the chairman of the BPAA during his keynote address. "That blasted Andrew Carnegie is spending all kinds of his own ill-gotten money to open libraries in cities nationwide. He calls it charity. I call it anti-competitive business practices hoping to bankrupt the entire publishing industry. We must fight these anti-profit, pro-copying librarians and put an end to this scourge!" -- from the February 4, 1895 edition of the New York Democrat-Republican
America's best buy for a quarter is a telephone call to the right person.
I call them as I see them. If I can't see them, I make them up. -- Biff Barf
I have great faith in fools -- self confidence my friends call it. -- Edgar Allan Poe
Sentimentality -- that's what we call the sentiment we don't share. -- Graham Greene
... the privileged being which we call human is distinguished from other animals only by certain double-edged manifestations which in charity we can only call "inhuman." -- R. A. Lafferty
We thrive on euphemism. We call multi-megaton bombs "Peace-keepers", closet size apartments "efficient" and incomprehensible artworks "innovative". In fact, "euphemism" has become a euphemism for "bald-faced lie". And now, here are the euphemisms so colorfully employed in Personal Ads: EUPHEMISM REALITY ------------------- ------------------------- Excited about life's journey No concept of reality Spiritually evolved Oversensitive Moody Manic-depressive Soulful Quiet manic-depressive Poet Boring manic-depressive Sultry/Sensual Easy Uninhibited Lacking basic social skills Unaffected and earthy Slob and lacking basic social skills Irreverent Nasty and lacking basic social skills Very human Quasimodo's best friend Swarthy Sweaty even when cold or standing still Spontaneous/Eclectic Scatterbrained Flexible Desperate Aging child Self-centered adult Youthful Over 40 and trying to deny it Good sense of humor Watches a lot of television
You know you're in trouble when... (1) Your only son tells you he wishes Anita Bryant would mind her own business. (2) You put your bra on backwards and it fits better. (3) You call Suicide Prevention and they put you on hold. (4) You see a `60 Minutes' news team waiting in your office. (5) Your birthday cake collapses from the weight of the candles. (6) Your 4-year old reveals that it's "almost impossible" to flush a grapefruit down the toilet. (7) You realize that you've memorized the back of the cereal box.
You may be sure that when a man begins to call himself a "realist," he is preparing to do something he is secretly ashamed of doing. -- Sydney Harris
The horizon of many people is a circle with a radius of zero. They call this their point of view. -- Albert Einstein
"Call me stupid [ Chorus: "You're stupid, Linus" ], but I actually compiled and booted this remotely." - Linus
"Rusty? Help me out, and I won't ever call "netfilter" a heap of stinking dung again. Do we have a deal?" - Linus
In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a hacker. But when I'm talking to journalists I just say "programmer" or something like that. - Linus Torvalds
The thing looks obvious, but I'd rather not apply it to my tree until somebody sends me the above back as a tested patch.. Call me a sissy. - Linus Torvalds on linux-kernel
I can see the intent. I can also see that the code doesn't match up to the intent. I call that a bug. You don't. Fine. - Linus Torvalds rejecting a patch on linux-kernel
Chris Rumpf wrote: > I would like to join this mailing list. you want all of us to give you a call saying you're welcome ?? - elko@home.nl on linux-kernel
indent does _not_ solve the problem of: * buggers who add 1001st broken implementation of memcmp(), call it FooTurdCompare and prepend it with 20x80 block comment. - Alexander Viro on coding style
And there was much suffering among the people, for g++ was a necessity. And one rose up from the mass and cried, "Lord Root, if thou canst not help us, then call upon the gods of far gcc@gcc.gnu.org for among them are sages of wisdom who may be of help!" - bug report from Sean Callanan send to the GCC mailing list
Something mysteriously formed, Born before heaven and Earth. In the silence and the void, Standing alone and unchanging, Ever present and in motion. Perhaps it is the mother of ten thousand things. I do not know its name Call it Tao. For lack of a better word, I call it great. Being great, it flows I flows far away. Having gone far, it returns. Therefore, "Tao is great; Heaven is great; Earth is great; The king is also great." These are the four great powers of the universe, And the king is one of them. Man follows Earth. Earth follows heaven. Heaven follows the Tao. Tao follows what is natural.
I used to think I was a child; now I think I am an adult -- not because I no longer do childish things, but because those I call adults are no more mature than I am.
Why do they call it baby-SITTING when all you do is run after them?
The X Window System: The standard UNIX graphical environment. With Linux, this is usually XFree86 (http://www.xfree86.org). You may call it X, XFree, the X Window System, XF86, or a host of other things. Call it 'XWindows' and someone will smack you and you will have deserved it.
<Knghtbrd> Leave it to manoj to call procmail "puny"
First there was Dial-A-Prayer, then Dial-A-Recipe, and even Dial-A-Footballer. But the south-east Victorian town of Sale has produced one to top them all. Dial-A-Wombat. It all began early yesterday when Sale police received a telephone call: "You won't believe this, and I'm not drunk, but there's a wombat in the phone booth outside the town hall," the caller said. Not firmly convinced about the caller's claim to sobriety, members of the constabulary drove to the scene, expecting to pick up a drunk. But there it was, an annoyed wombat, trapped in a telephone booth. The wombat, determined not to be had the better of again, threw its bulk into the fray. It was eventually lassoed and released in a nearby scrub. Then the officers received another message ... another wombat in another phone booth. There it was: Another angry wombat trapped in a telephone booth. The constables took the miffed marsupial into temporary custody and released it, too, in the scrub. But on their way back to the station they happened to pass another telephone booth, and -- you guessed it -- another imprisoned wombat. After some serious detective work, the lads in blue found a suspect, and after questioning, released him to be charged on summons. Their problem ... they cannot find a law against placing wombats in telephone booths. -- "Newcastle Morning Herald", NSW Australia, Aug 1980.
Pittsburgh Driver's Test (7) The car directly in front of you has a flashing right tail light but a steady left tail light. This means (a) one of the tail lights is broken; you should blow your horn to call the problem to the driver's attention. (b) the driver is signaling a right turn. (c) the driver is signaling a left turn. (d) the driver is from out of town. The correct answer is (d). Tail lights are used in some foreign countries to signal turns.
This product is meant for educational purposes only. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental. Void where prohibited. Some assembly may be required. Batteries not included. Contents may settle during shipment. Use only as directed. May be too intense for some viewers. If condition persists, consult your physician. No user-serviceable parts inside. Breaking seal constitutes acceptance of agreement. Not responsible for direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages resulting from any defect, error or failure to perform. Slippery when wet. For office use only. Substantial penalty for early withdrawal. Do not write below this line. Your cancelled check is your receipt. Avoid contact with skin. Employees and their families are not eligible. Beware of dog. Driver does not carry cash. Limited time offer, call now to insure prompt delivery. Use only in well-ventilated area. Keep away from fire or flame. Some equipment shown is optional. Price does not include taxes, dealer prep, or delivery. Penalty for private use. Call toll free before digging. Some of the trademarks mentioned in this product appear for identification purposes only. All models over 18 years of age. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Postage will be paid by addressee. Apply only to affected area. One size fits all. Many suitcases look alike. Edited for television. No solicitors. Reproduction strictly prohibited. Restaurant package, not for resale. Objects in mirror are closer than they appear. Decision of judges is final. This supersedes all previous notices. No other warranty expressed or implied.
Destiny is a good thing to accept when it's going your way. When it isn't, don't call it destiny; call it injustice, treachery, or simple bad luck. -- Joseph Heller, "God Knows"
I know not how I came into this, shall I call it a dying life or a living death? -- St. Augustine
Take your dying with some seriousness, however. Laughing on the way to your execution is not generally understood by less advanced life forms, and they'll call you crazy. -- "Messiah's Handbook: Reminders for the Advanced Soul"
Let's call it an accidental feature. --Larry Wall
I forgot to mention an important fact in the 1.3.67 announcement. In order to get a fully working kernel, you have to follow the steps below: - Walk around your computer widdershins 3 times, chanting "Linus is overworked, and he makes lousy patches, but we love him anyway". Get your spuouse to do this too for extra effect. Children are optional. - Apply the patch included in this mail - Call your system "Super-67", and don't forget to unapply the patch before you later applying the official 1.3.68 patch. - reboot -- Linus Torvalds, announcing another kernel patch
Everyone who comes in here wants three things: (1) They want it quick. (2) They want it good. (3) They want it cheap. I tell 'em to pick two and call me back. -- sign on the back wall of a small printing company
Hideously disfigured by an ancient Indian curse? WE CAN HELP! Call (511) 338-0959 for an immediate appointment.
If you're like most homeowners, you're afraid that many repairs around your home are too difficult to tackle. So, when your furnace explodes, you call in a so-called professional to fix it. The "professional" arrives in a truck with lettering on the sides and deposits a large quantity of tools and two assistants who spend the better part of the week in your basement whacking objects at random with heavy wrenches, after which the "professional" returns and gives you a bill for slightly more money than it would cost you to run a successful campaign for the U.S. Senate. And that's why you've decided to start doing things yourself. You figure, "If those guys can fix my furnace, then so can I. How difficult can it be?" Very difficult. In fact, most home projects are impossible, which is why you should do them yourself. There is no point in paying other people to screw things up when you can easily screw them up yourself for far less money. This article can help you. -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
It is ridiculous to call this an industry. This is not. This is rat eat rat, dog eat dog. I'll kill 'em, and I'm going to kill 'em before they kill me. You're talking about the American way of survival of the fittest. -- Ray Kroc, founder of McDonald's
Never call a man a fool. Borrow from him.
Put your best foot forward. Or just call in and say you're sick.
The first Rotarian was the first man to call John the Baptist "Jack." -- H.L. Mencken
The more I want to get something done, the less I call it work. -- Richard Bach, "Illusions"
"We maintain that the very foundation of our way of life is what we call free enterprise," said Cash McCall, "but when one of our citizens show enough free enterprise to pile up a little of that profit, we do our best to make him feel that he ought to be ashamed of himself." -- Cameron Hawley
Besides, REAL computers have a rename() system call. :-) -- Larry Wall in <7937@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
Does the same as the system call of that name. If you don't know what it does, don't worry about it. -- Larry Wall in the perl man page regarding chroot(2)
"I find this a nice feature but it is not according to the documentation. Or is it a BUG?" "Let's call it an accidental feature. :-)" -- Larry Wall in <6909@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
Let us be charitable, and call it a misleading feature :-) -- Larry Wall in <2609@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov>
Call me bored, but don't call me boring. -- Larry Wall in <199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org>
People who understand context would be steamed to have someone else dictating how they can call it. -- Larry Wall in <199710221710.KAA24242@wall.org>
"I'll tell you what I know, then," he decided. "The pin I'm wearing means I'm a member of the IA. That's Inamorati Anonymous. An inamorato is somebody in love. That's the worst addiction of all." "Somebody is about to fall in love," Oedipa said, "you go sit with them, or something?" "Right. The whole idea is to get where you don't need it. I was lucky. I kicked it young. But there are sixty-year-old men, believe it or not, and women even older, who might wake up in the night screaming." "You hold meetings, then, like the AA?" "No, of course not. You get a phone number, an answering service you can call. Nobody knows anybody else's name; just the number in case it gets so bad you can't handle it alone. We're isolates, Arnold. Meetings would destroy the whole point of it." -- Thomas Pynchon, "The Crying of Lot 49"
If you can't be good, be careful. If you can't be careful, give me a call.
If you love someone, set them free. If they don't come back, then call them up when you're drunk.
He probably just wants to take over my CELLS and then EXPLODE inside me like a BARREL of runny CHOPPED LIVER! Or maybe he'd like to PSYCHOLIGICALLY TERRORISE ME until I have no objection to a RIGHT-WING MILITARY TAKEOVER of my apartment!! I guess I should call AL PACINO!
A woman went into a hospital one day to give birth. Afterwards, the doctor came to her and said, "I have some... odd news for you." "Is my baby all right?" the woman anxiously asked. "Yes, he is," the doctor replied, "but we don't know how. Your son (we assume) was born with no body. He only has a head." Well, the doctor was correct. The Head was alive and well, though no one knew how. The Head turned out to be fairly normal, ignoring his lack of a body, and lived for some time as typical a life as could be expected under the circumstances. One day, about twenty years after the fateful birth, the woman got a phone call from another doctor. The doctor said, "I have recently perfected an operation. Your son can live a normal life now: we can graft a body onto his head!" The woman, practically weeping with joy, thanked the doctor and hung up. She ran up the stairs saying, "Johnny, Johnny, I have a wonderful surprise for you!" "Oh no," cried The Head, "not another HAT!"