Call it Vacation

By: Scott Bradner

Oops, deadline time again! Well I'm going to claim to be on vacation this week.

I'm doing this on a Sunday morning. Last night I went to the ARPANET 25th anniversary party and I head off to Netword+Interop in a few hours. The party was a bit self congratulatory but fun time. The evening ended with a multimedia presentation chronicling who did what and when. Mostly 'good old boys' stuff, though some of them were women. The final bit on the video were some kids talking about the Internet and how good it is. They were also claiming that its better suited for kids because adults like to watch too much TV, don't pay attention after 10 pm and don't like to use their brains.

The rest of this column is a collection of tag lines that people put on their email and a few things that have shown up from various fortune cookie programs. Part of this collection was posted to one of the humor mailing lists but by the time I got it all attribution had been removed it, so thanks to whomever you are. A low impact column. Back to sometimes harsh reality next time.

Apropos of the party last night:

The internet is a pretty hostile place to the change averse.

What passes for wisdom in the computer world:

Pentiums melt in your PC, not in your hand.

Multics is security spelled sideways.

Daddy, why doesn't this magnet pick up this floppy disk?

An elephant is a mouse with an operating system.

C program run. C program crash. C programmer quit.

I haven't lost my mind, I've got it backed up on tape somewhere.

Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.

The secret of the universe is @*&^^^ NO CARRIER

A bug in the code is worth two in the documentation.

Did anyone see my lost carrier?

A modem is a baudy house.

Error, no keyboard - press F1 to continue.

From an IBM maintenance manual [1925] "By all means, do not use a hammer."

Ever notice how fast Windows runs? Neither did I.

Double your drive space - delete Windows!

A LISP programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of nothing.

From a compiler: " None of the errors were found."

A few truisms:

Friends help you move. Real friends help you move bodies.

Make it idiot proof and someone will make a better idiot.

A flashlight is a case for holding dead batteries.

Hard work has a future payoff. Laziness pays off now.

Don't take life too seriously, you won't get out alive.

Better to understand a little than to misunderstand a lot.

Given a 50-50 chance you will be wrong 90% of the time.

I.R.S.: We've got what it takes to take what you've got!

Few women admit their age. Few men act theirs.

All generalizations are false, including this one.

A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation.

Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.

He who laughs last thinks slowest!

Innovation is hard to schedule.

Always remember you're unique, just like everyone else.

We are born naked, wet and hungry. Then things get worse.

2 is not equal to 3 -- not even for large values of 2.

Learn from your parents' mistakes - use birth control!

Artificial Intelligence usually beats real stupidity.

A closed mouth gathers no foot.

A good scapegoat is hard to find.

Some definitions:

Lottery: A tax on people who are bad at math.

Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere may be happy.

Consciousness: that annoying time between naps.

Positive self image:

I'm as confused as a baby in a topless bar.

The gene pool could use a little chlorine.

I'm not a complete idiot, some parts are missing!

There's too much blood in my caffeine system.

Oops. My brain just hit a bad sector.

I don't suffer from insanity. I enjoy every minute of it.

Okay, who put a "stop payment" on my reality check?

I used to have a handle on life, then it broke.

Humor?:

"Very funny, Scotty. Now beam down my clothes."

"More hay, Trigger?" "No thanks, Roy, I'm stuffed!"

When there's a will, I want to be in it.

We have enough youth, how about a fountain of SMART?

A cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.

Give me ambiguity or give me something else.

For old columns' sake:

"Criminal Lawyer" is a redundancy.

Disclaimer:

After all, all he did was string together a lot of old, well-known quotations.

--H.L. Mencken [on Shakespeare]