Random Funny Stuff

Just a bunch of random funny stuff.

Sign on a church cooking contest: "Make Your Peas With The Lord."

Remember when sci-fi writers were concerned that humans would eventually be enslaved by machines? They were right. I enjoy writing and creating these pages. You enjoy reading them. We're both slaves.

I'd like to mention Werner Heisenberg here, but I'm uncertain as to why. Maybe his Uncertainty Principle was a prophetic metaphor for the World Wide Web. After a long session of web-surfing, you end up at some page and you can either know where you are, or why you're here...but not both.

Star Trek fans: Download a pdf of my Prime Directive Deviation Form.

Please choose an excuse by number to save time:

1. That's the way we've always done it.
2. I didn't know you were in a hurry for it.
3. That's not in my department.
4. No one told me to go ahead.
5. I'm waiting for an OK.
6. How did I know this was different?
7. That's her job, not mine.
8. Wait 'til the boss comes back and ask him.
9. I forgot.
10. I didn't think it was very important.
11. I'm so busy I just can't get around to it.
12. I thought I told you.
13. I wasn't hired to do that.

What's Blues...And What Isn't

One weekend in 1999, I sifted through over 4000 emails saved in my "trash" since 1995, deleting most of the useless ones not worth keeping longer. But I did find some amusing tidbits among them.

Actual lines I've written in emails. The bold black line is the original line from the incoming email, and the red one is my reply.

On nothing in particular:

the urge to jump on a Motorcycle still flows strongly through my veins.

There's always circus-style high diving into a water tank...

People who say "Wow! How lucky that you can work at home!" have never tried.

Things are fine at home, and as well as can be expected if one has to work for money.

These came to me, literally, in a dream the prior night:

"While nuclear power plants with fewer than eight employees need not register with the NRC, they must nonetheless maintain a telephone listing under 'Power Plants: Nuclear.' Failure to do so may be punishable by a $250 fine."

I envision large areas of the country fairly bristling with Mom-and-Pop nukes. Enforcement would be easy: their glow can be easily spotted by night satellite photos, right?

"Visit Charlemagne's: the ultimate Dark-Ages dining experience!"

I wonder how to get something that'd hold its value better?

Build a time machine, buy IBM stock at $4 in 1952....

17 May 1996, Unabomber haiku a few weeks after his arrest:

Winter arrest means

I can't mail bombs any more

Such brotherly love.

...wondering how you were going to fit a six-week sabbatical into only one month.

I'm a professional.

Do you want me to put in your email address, or a link to your home page?

Any of the four permutations: none, one, the other, or both. Your choice.

Trying to recall a software product I'd seen:

I saw something that came in via email last week. Forgot totally what it was or where. They had a web page.

In response to "Another question for Mr. Answer":

Stock answers: "No, Tuesday, 12."

Replying to an email on trivia:

All porcupines float in water.

Dead ones moreso.

Recalling a job in the mid 1970s:

I forgot about Pete. I recall the first time he showed me some C code in 1977 [he came from Bell Labs]. I saw all those {} and said "Looks likeline noise..."

At that time, I had only coded in Fortran, BASIC, and lots of assembly language. Seeing characters like { } [ ] ; was somewhat alien to me.

On recording and music:

My wife accepts/tolerates my studio spending. I suppose after having owned aircraft for a decade, it's a net savings.

...considering doing biz with Caruso [music sales] and feel skeptical about it now.

But I always heard good things about Enrico...

I guess at some point I'll have an under-the-saddle [guitar] pickup installed.

Didn't know you had a horse, cowboy.

I may use it Saturday night, if the ambient noise at the coffee house is high.

If you need extra noise, I'm your man.

Something to try next time I have to record a poor vocalist. Give him half a bottle of whiskey: if it doesn't improve the vocalist, drink the remainder yourself.

On working at Apple Computer:

How's it going at Apple - are things better now?

We have fans, we have shit, eventually the two always meet.

...anyone reading it reconizes your apple.com address, and takes what is said a little more seriously.

In reality it's like a Three Stooges movie here all the time...

Xerox Profit sharing came through :-)

Lucky we ain't got loss-sharing here...

I hear Apple is doing well.

Not counting the $150 million loss we just posted...

04 Feb 1997, discussing Apple layoffs and departmental reorganization, 3 months before Apple terminated its Licensing program and blew up my group:

Looks like MacOS Licensing R&D, my current group, is safe, though.

Boy, Apple sure hasn't lost its sense of drama and timing, has it?

As John Sculley used to say, "This is an exciting time for Apple computer." No matter what was happening...

20 Aug 1997, partly in reply to a query about how things were at Apple when the company was in deep trouble:

Me? Naw, we can't take any more sabbaticals, but it's odd how I get really sick every five years nowadays...lasts several weeks then goes away...

07 Oct 1997, to a colleague who was leaving the company, at a time when Oracle chief Larry Ellison was rumored to be trying to buy Apple: I signed my email:

Future Larry Ellison pool maintenance man.