July : Dictionary / Wörterbuch (BEOLINGUS, TU Chemnitz)

Proverbs, aphorisms, quotations (English)	by Linux fortune

Like an expensive sports car, fine-tuned and well-built, Portia was sleek, shapely, and gorgeous, her red jumpsuit moulding her body, which was as warm as seatcovers in July, her hair as dark as new tires, her eyes flashing like bright hubcaps, and her lips as dewy as the beads of fresh rain on the hood; she was a woman driven -- fueled by a single accelerant -- and she needed a man, a man who wouldn't shift from his views, a man to steer her along the right road: a man like Alf Romeo. -- Rachel Sheeley, winner The hair ball blocking the drain of the shower reminded Laura she would never see her little dog Pritzi again. -- Claudia Fields, runner-up It could have been an organically based disturbance of the brain -- perhaps a tumor or a metabolic deficiency -- but after a thorough neurological exam it was determined that Byron was simply a jerk. -- Jeff Jahnke, runner-up Winners in the 7th Annual Bulwer-Lytton Bad Writing Contest. The contest is named after the author of the immortal lines: "It was a dark and stormy night." The object of the contest is to write the opening sentence of the worst possible novel.
October. This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks in. The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August, and February. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"
"If you'll excuse me a minute, I'm going to have a cup of coffee." - broadcast from Apollo 11's LEM, "Eagle", to Johnson Space Center, Houston July 20, 1969, 7:27 P.M.
In recognizing AT&T Bell Laboratories for corporate innovation, for its invention of cellular mobile communications, IEEE President Russell C. Drew referred to the cellular telephone as a "basic necessity." How times have changed, one observer remarked: many in the room recalled the advent of direct dialing. -- The Institute, July 1988, pg. 11
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"
One dusty July afternoon, somewhere around the turn of the century, Patrick Malone was in Mulcahey's Bar, bending an elbow with the other street car conductors from the Brooklyn Traction Company. While they were discussing the merits of a local ring hero, the bar goes silent. Malone turns around to see his wife, with a face grim as death, stalking to the bar. Slapping a four-bit piece down on the bar, she draws herself up to her full five feet five inches and says to Mulcahey, "Give me what himself has been havin' all these years." Mulcahey looks at Malone, who shrugs, and then back at Margaret Mary Malone. He sets out a glass and pours her a triple shot of Rye. The bar is totally silent as they watch the woman pick up the glass and knock back the drink. She slams the glass down on the bar, gasps, shudders slightly, and passes out; falling straight back, stiff as a board, saved from sudden contact with the barroom floor by the ample belly of Seamus Fogerty. Sometime later, she comes to on the pool table, a jacket under her head. Her bloodshot eyes fell upon her husband, who says, "And all these years you've been thinkin' I've been enjoying meself."
The three best things about going to school are June, July, and August.
A Hen Brooding Kittens A friend informs us that he saw at the Novato ranch, Marin county, a few days since, a hen actually brooding and otherwise caring for three kittens! The gentleman upon whose premises this strange event is transpiring says the hen adopted the kittens when they were but a few days old, and that she has devoted them her undivided care for several weeks past. The young felines are now of respectable size, but they nevertheless follow the hen at her cluckings, and are regularly brooded at night beneath her wings. -- Sacramento Daily Union, July 2, 1861
The Greatest Mathematical Error The Mariner I space probe was launched from Cape Canaveral on 28 July 1962 towards Venus. After 13 minutes' flight a booster engine would give acceleration up to 25,820 mph; after 44 minutes 9,800 solar cells would unfold; after 80 days a computer would calculate the final course corrections and after 100 days the craft would cirlce the unknown planet, scanning the mysterious cloud in which it is bathed. However, with an efficiency that is truly heartening, Mariner I plunged into the Atlantic Ocean only four minutes after takeoff. Inquiries later revealed that a minus sign had been omitted from the instructions fed into the computer. "It was human error", a launch spokesman said. This minus sign cost L4,280,000. -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"
Once again dread deed is done. Canon sleeps, his all-knowing eye shaded to human chance and circumstance. Peace reigns anew o'er Pine Valley, but Canon's sleep is troubled. Beware, scant days past the Ides of July. Impatient hands wait eagerly to grasp, to hold scant moments of time wrested from life in the full glory of Canon's power; held captive by his unblinking eye. Three golden orbs stand watch; one each to toll the day, hour, minute until predestiny decrees his reawakening. When that feared moment arives, "Ask not for whom the bell tolls, It tolls for thee." -- "I extended the loan on your Camera, at the Pine Valley Pawn Shop today"
Well, my daddy left home when I was three, And he didn't leave much for Ma and me, Just and old guitar an'a empty bottle of booze. Now I don't blame him 'cause he ran and hid, But the meanest thing that he ever did, Was before he left he went and named me Sue. ... But I made me a vow to the moon and the stars, I'd search the honkey tonks and the bars, And kill the man that give me that awful name. It was Gatlinburg in mid-July, I'd just hit town and my throat was dry, Thought I'd stop and have myself a brew, At an old saloon on a street of mud, Sitting at a table, dealing stud, Sat that dirty (bleep) that named me Sue. ... Now, I knew that snake was my own sweet Dad, From a wornout picture that my Mother had, And I knew that scar on his cheek and his evil eye... -- Johnny Cash, "A Boy Named Sue"
George's friend Sam had a dog who could recite the Gettysburg Address. "Let me buy him from you," pleaded George after a demonstration. "Okay," agreed Sam. "All he knows is that Lincoln speech anyway." At his company's Fourth of July picnic, George brought his new pet and announced that the animal could recite the entire Gettysburg Address. No one believed him, and they proceeded to place bets against the dog. George quieted the crowd and said, "Now we'll begin!" Then he looked at the dog. The dog looked back. No sound. "Come on, boy, do your stuff." Nothing. A disappointed George took his dog and went home. "Why did you embarrass me like that in front of everybody?" George yelled at the dog. "Do you realize how much money you lost me?" "Don't be silly, George," replied the dog. "Think of the odds we're gonna get on Labor Day."
"Professional certification for car people may sound like an oxymoron." -The Wall Street Journal, page B1, Tuesday, July 17, 1990.
Dave Finton gazes into his crystal ball... July 2000: Government Issues Update on Y2K Crisis to American Public In a statement to all U.S. citizens, the President assured that the repairs to the nation's infrastructure, damaged severely when the Y2K crisis hit on January 1, is proceeding on track with the Government's guidelines. The message was mailed to every citizen by mail carriers via horseback. The statement itself was written on parchment with hand-made ink written from fountain pens. "Our technological progress since the Y2K disaster has been staggering," said the statement. "We have been able to fix our non-Y2K compliant horse carriages so that commerce can once again continue. We believe that we will be able to reinvent steam-powered engines within the next decade. Internal combustion engines should become operational once again sometime before the dawn of the next century." No one knows when the technological luxuries we once enjoyed as little as 6 months ago will return. Things such as e-mail, the Internet, and all computers were lost when the crisis showed itself for what it really was: a disaster waiting to happen. Scholars predict the mainframe computer will be invented again during the 24th century...
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"...
I was in this prematurely air conditioned supermarket and there were all these aisles and there were these bathing caps you could buy that had these kind of Fourth of July plumes on them that were red and yellow and blue and I wasn't tempted to buy one but I was reminded of the fact that I had been avoiding the beach. -- Lucinda Childs "Einstein On The Beach"