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- Humour Archive 8 -

1. Irish Medical Dictionary (18-JUL-02)
   
2. Customer Dial-In (18-JUL-02)
   
3. The Gardener's Hymn (18-JUL-02)
   
4. Millennium English (18-JUL-02)
   
5. Weird Facts (20-AUG-02)
   
6. Dear Diary (23-SEP-02)
   
7. What Children Say (24-SEP-02)
   
8. Seven ten cap (24-SEP-02)
   
9. Lawyers (who needs 'em?) (24-SEP-02)
   
10. Special Note to Item 6604 (24-SEP-02)
    
11. Medical Records (29-SEP-02)
    

I feel the following is probably not "Politically Correct" but it's rather entertaining anyway! The correct accent should be used when reading them.

Sometimes I wish I could charge £100 for every phone call I have to make in order to gain access to customer systems, and a further £1 per minute taken in order to gain that access.

Here is an account of an actual attempt to gain access to a certain customer's system, blow-by-blow, in full. Naturally the names of people involved have been changed to protect the guilty, and any resemblance to real people either living or dead is purely co-incidental and not intended.

Ring Jenny, who has been chasing the call incessantly since she logged it with us only a short while ago. This is the call to find out more details, so is exempt from my proposed £100 phonecall charge.

Discover I need a login and password to dial into their system. Jenny gives me the number of an Elizabeth Lewis, who can help me there.

Ring up Elizabeth. That's £100. Her colleague answers the phone, and tells me that Elizabeth is in a meeting, and can she help.

I tell her who I am, and what I need to do. She gives me a login along with a few more things I need to type in to gain access.

I try to dial into the sysetm, but it fails and I get an error. I try a few more times, getting errors each and every time. Ring the modem manually - no answer.
I won't charge for that.

Ring Elizabeth's colleague back to say what's happening.
So far £200.
She cannot help, knows nothing about what needs to be done, so gives me the phone number of John Powell, a networking chap, who deals with this kind of thing.

Ring up John, who is also in a meeting. His colleague tries to help, and gives me the telephone number of another Networking person who can help. Now I've earned a hypothetical £300.

Ring up this Networking chap. He asks me what modem number I'm using.
So I tell him.
Funnily enough, it's wrong.
He gives me another modem number. That too, does not work so he supplies me with yet another modem number.
I try this one, and this time there is a response from the other end. But I get gobbledigook come up on my screen, so there's a problem with the line settings and I still cannot get dialled in as a result.
We try this procedure a second time, but this time get a busy signal. Clearly the modem at the customer's end did not hang up from the previous call correctly.
Another phonecall, another £100, bringing it upto £400.

Ring Jenny back (another £100) to say I can't do anything because I'm having problems getting into their system. She informs me that there is someone else who can help, but he has now gone home for the rest of the day, so I ask her to organise access for me the following day to avoid a repeat process of this procedure.

Next day, Jenny rings back and says she has the number of someone else who can help me gain access to their system.

So I ring this number ... another hypothetical £100 ... and speak to the person I want to speak to!
I explain the problem to him, and he's aware because Jenny has already told him (I think this is technically called "progress"). And, of course, I've earned £600 in total for my efforts.

He tells me to try again. So I try and dial in again. This time I get a login prompt. At last!! A result!!
I enter the login he gives me, and it does not require a password.
Then I get this huge menu and he walks me through what needs to be entered. Amongst other things, it asks me for my company name, at which point I enter the full name of the company I worked for at that time.

Now I get a rude message from the system telling me that the company I entered is not registered on their system, and to gain access I need to phone someone else up. The chap I'm speaking to tells me that he'll find out what needs to be entered here, and it transpires that it's a shortened form of the company name that I must type in, not the full name.

So I try again. Success!!! At last!!! I get all the right answers to the system's questions and shoot directly to the top of the class!! Superb! A result, after over 3.5 hours of attempting to gain access to this one system!

Now to calculate the invoice. I made a total of 6 phone calls making up £600, plus 3.5 hours at a pound per minute.
That's 3.5 times 60, giving a total of £210.
Adding this to the £600 for the phone calls gives me a whopping £810 to gain access to this customer's system.

Nice little earner, eh?

All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small
All things wise and wonderful, the Lord God made them ALL.

But what we never mention, though gardeners know it's true
Is when He made the goodies, He made the baddies too.

All things spray and swattable, disasters great and small,
All things paraquatable, the Lord God made them all.

The greenfly on the roses, the maggots in the peas,
Manure that fills our noses, He also gave us these.

The drought that kills the fuchsias, the frost that nips the buds,
The rain that drowns the seedlings, the blight that hits the spuds.

The midges and mosquitoes, the nettles and the weeds,
The pigeons in the green stuff, the sparrows on the seeds.

The fly that gets the carrots, the wasp that eats the plums,
How black the gardener's outlook, though green may be his thumbs.

But still we gardeners labour, midst vegetables and flowers,
And pray what hits our neighbours, will somehow bypass ours.

All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful, the Lord God made them ALL.


(© Daloni Peel, The Chronicles of St. Barnabas, Autumn 1997)

EEC Directive: European English for the Millennium

Having chosen English as the preferred EC language (above the protestations of the Germans) the European parliament has commissioned a feasibility study in ways of improving the efficiency in communications between various Government departments.

European officials have often pointed out that English spelling is unnecessarily difficult. For example: cough, plough, rough, through and thorough. What is clearly needed is a phased programme of changes to iron out these anomalies. The programme would, of course, be administered by a committee of staff at top level, by participating nations.

In the first year, for example, the committee would suggest using 's' instead of the soft 'c'. Sertainly sivil servants in all sities would reseive this news with joy. Then the hard 'c' could be replased by 'k' sinse both letters are pronounsed alike. Not only would this klear up konfusions in the minds of klerikal workers, but typewriters kould be made with one less letter.

There would be growing enthusiasm when in the sekond year it was announsed that the troublesome'ph'would henceforth be written'f.' This would make words such as 'fotograf' twenty persent shorter in print.

In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reatsh the stage where more komplikated shanges are possible. Governments would enkourage the removal of double letters which have always been a deterent to akurate speling.

We would al agre that the horible mes of silent'e's in the languag is disgrasful. Therefor we kould drop thes and kontinu to read and writ as though nothing had hapend. By this tim it would be four years sins the skem began and people would be reseptiv to steps sutsh as replasing 'th' by'z'. Perhaps zen ze funktion of 'w' kould be takn on by 'v' vitsh is, after al, half a 'w.' Shortly after zis, ze unesesary 'o' kuld be dropd from words kontaining 'ou.' Similar arguments vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinashins of leters.

Kontinuing zis proses yer after yer ve vud eventual hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Avter Tventi yers ser vud be no mor trublsm difikultis and evrivum vud fin it ezi to understand ech ozer.

Ze drem vud finall hav kum tru.

1. If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.
2. The human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out to the body to squirt blood 30 feet.
3. A cockroach will live nine days without its head before it starves to death.
4. Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour.
5. The flea can jump 350 times its body length. It's like a human jumping the length of a football field.
6. The catfish has over 27,000 taste buds.
7. Some lions mate over 50 times a day.
8. The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue.
9. Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people.
10. A cat's urine glows under a black light.
11. Starfish have no brains.
12. Humans and dolphins are the only species that have sex for pleasure.
13. Butterflies taste with their feet.
14. A duck's quack doesn't echo, and no one knows why.
15. In 10 minutes, a hurricane releases more energy than all of the world's nuclear weapons combined.
16. On average, 100 people choke to death on ballpoint pens every year.
17. On average, people fear spiders more than they do death.
18. Ninety percent of New York City cabbies are recently arrived immigrants.
19. Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married.
20. Elephants are the only animals that can't jump.
21. Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.
22. It's possible to lead a cow upstairs ... but not downstairs.
23. Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
24. It's physically impossible for you to lick your elbow.
25. The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year because when it built, engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would occupy the building.
26. A snail can sleep for three years.
27. No word in the English language rhymes with "MONTH."
28. Average life span of a major league baseball: 7 pitches.
29. Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing. - SCARY!!!
30. The electric chair was invented by a dentist.
31. All polar bears are left handed.
32. In ancient Egypt, priests plucked EVERY hair from their bodies, including their eyebrows and eyelashes.
33. An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
34. TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using only the letters on the top row of the keyboard.
35. "Go" is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.
36. If Barbie were life-size, her measurements would be 39-23-33. She would stand seven feet, two inches tall.
37. A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.
38. The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.
39. Americans on average eat 18 acres of pizza every day.
40. Almost everyone who reads this article will try to lick their elbow.

Monday: Now home from honeymoon and settled in our new home. It's fun to cook for Bob. Today I made angel food cake. The recipe said, "Beat 12 eggs separately" The neighbors were nice enough to loan me some extra bowls.

Tuesday: Bob wanted fruit salad for supper. The recipe said, "Serve without dressing." So I didn't dress. What a surprise when Bob brought a friend home for supper.

Wednesday: A good day for rice. The recipe said, "Wash thoroughly before steaming the rice." It seemed kinda of silly but I took a bath. I can't say it improved the rice though.

Thursday: Today Bob asked for salad again. I tried a new recipe. It said, "Prepare ingredients, then toss on a bed of lettuce one hour before serving," which is what led up to Bob asking me why there was lettuce in our bed that night.

Friday: I found an easy recipe for cookies. It said, "Put all ingredients in bowl and beat it." There must have been something wrong with this recipe. When I got back, everything was the same as when I left.

Saturday: Bob did the shopping today and brought home a chicken. He asked me to dress it for Sunday (oh boy). For some reason Bob keeps counting to ten.

Sunday: Bob's folks came to dinner. I wanted to serve roast. All I could find was a hamburger. Suddenly I had a flash of genius. I put the hamburger in the oven and set the controls for roast. It still came out hamburger, much to my disappointment.

Good night, Dear Diary. This has been a very exciting week. I am eager for tomorrow to come so I can try out a new recipe on Bob. If we could just get a bigger oven, I would like to surprise him with "Chocolate Moose."

Admittedly some of the following are a bit puerile, but others are quite entertaining....

Teacher: George, go to the map and find North America.
Goerge (walks up to the map): Here it is!
Teacher: Correct. Now, class, who discovered America?
Class: George!

Teacher: Willy, name one important thing we have today that we didn't have ten years ago.
Willy: Me!

Teacher: Tommy, why do you always get so dirty?
Tommy: Well, I'm a lot closer to the ground than you are.

Sylvia: Dad, can you write in the dark?
Father: I think so. What do you want me to write?
Sylvia: Your name on this report card.

Teacher: How can you prevent diseases caused by biting insects?
Jose: Don't bite any.

Teacher: Ellen, give me a sentence starting with "I."
Ellen: I is...
Teacher (interrupting): No, Ellen. Always say, "I am."
Ellen: All right ... "I am the ninth letter of the alphabet."

Teacher: Can anybody give an example of COINCIDENCE?
Johnny : Sir, my Mother and Father got married on the same day and same time.

Teacher: George Washington not only chopped down his father's Cherry tree, but also admitted doing it.
Now do you know why his father didn't punish him?
Johnny : Because George still had the axe in his hand.

Son : Daddy, have you ever been to Egypt?
Father : No. Why do you ask that?
Son : Well, where did you get THIS mummy then?

Teacher : What a pair of strange socks you are wearing, one is green and one is blue with red spots!
Kirk : Yes it's really strange. I've got another pair of the same at home.

At a church school gathering, one little old lady approached a cute 5-year-old girl and asked her where she got her good looks. "I musta got 'em from my Daddy," said the little girl, "'cause Mommy's still got hers."

Teacher: Now, children, if I saw a man beating a donkey and stopped him, what virtue would I be showing?
Student: Brotherly love.

Teacher: Now, Sam, tell me frankly do you say prayers before eating?
Sam : No sir, I don't have to, my mom is a good cook.

Teacher: Desmond, your composition on "My Dog" is exactly the same as your brother's. Did you copy his?
Desmond: No, teacher, it's the same dog!

Teacher: What do you call a person who keeps on talking when people are no longer interested?
Pupil : A teacher.

Not the sharpest tool in the shed...

The other day I was in the local auto part store, a lady comes in and asks for a seven ten cap.

We all looked at each other and said, "What's a seven ten cap?"
She said, "You know, it's right on the engine. Mine got lost somehow and I need a new one."

"What kind of a car is it on?" they asked. I'm thinking that maybe it's an old Datsun Seven Ten, but no, she said it's a Buick.

"OK lady, how big is it?"

She makes a circle with her hands about 3-1/2 inches in diameter.
What does it do? we asked.

She said, "I don't know, but it's always been there."

One of us gave her a note pad and asked her if she could draw a picture of it. So she makes a circle about 3-1/2 inches in diameter and in the center she writes 710.

The guys behind the counter are looking at it upside down as she writes it ... and they just fall down behind the counter laughing so hard in hysterics.

Now follow these directions ... draw a circle, write 710 in the middle of it, and turn it around so you can see what they saw.

Apparently this is a true story..... A Charlotte, NC lawyer purchased a box of two dozen very rare and expensive cigars, then insured them against loss by mishap, including fire.

Within a month, having smoked his entire stockpile of these cigars, and without yet having made the first premium payment on the policy, the lawyer filed a claim against the insurance company. In his claim, the lawyer stated the cigars were lost "in a series of small fires."

The insurance company refused to pay, citing the obvious reason, that the man had consumed the cigars in the normal fashion. The lawyer sued .... and won! In delivering the ruling the judge agreed with the insurance company that the claim was frivolous, but stated nevertheless, that the lawyer held a policy from the company in which it had accepted that the cigars were insurable and also had agreed to insure them against fire, without defining what was considered to be "unacceptable fire," and was thus obliged to pay the claim.

Rather than endure a lengthy and costly appeal process, the insurance company accepted the ruling and paid $15,000 to the lawyer for the loss of his rare cigars in the "fires."

After the lawyer cashed the cheque, the insurance company had him arrested on 24 counts of arson. With his own insurance claim and testimony from the previous case being used against him, the lawyer was convicted of intentionally burning his insured property and was sentenced to 24 months in jail and ordered to pay a $24,000 fine.

This is allegedly a true story and was the 1st place winner in a Criminal Lawyers Award Contest.

Staff Note:

It has come to our attention recently that many of you have been turning in time sheets that specify large amounts of Miscellaneous Unproductive Time (code 5309).
To our department, unproductive time is not a problem.
What is a problem, however, is not knowing exactly what you are doing with your unproductive time. The newly installed Activity Based Costing Financial System requires additional information to achieve its goals.

Attached below is a sheet specifying a tentative extended job code list based on our observations of employee activities. The list will allow you to specify with better precision what you are doing during your unproductive time.

Please begin using this job code list immediately and let us know about any difficulties you may encounter.

In order to keep the times codes list as short as possible, it has further been decreed that all other timesheet entries be consolidated into just one code for "Productive Time".

The following quotes were allegedly taken from actual medical records as dictated by physicians:

• By the time he was admitted, his rapid heart had stopped and he was feeling better.
• On the second day, the knee was better and on the third day it had completely disappeared.
• The patient has been depressed ever since she began seeing me in 1983.
• Patient was released to outpatient department without dressing.
• Discharge status: Alive but without permission.
• The patient refused an autopsy.
• The patient expired on the floor uneventfully.
• The patient's medical history has been remarkably insignificant with only a 40 pound weight gain in the past three days.
• She slipped on the ice and apparently her legs went in separate directions in early December.
• The patient had waffles for breakfast and anorexia for lunch.
• She is numb from the toes down.
• The skin was moist and dry.
• When she fainted, her eyes rolled around the room.

Need an Extradisambiguator? Click here!

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