EVERYTHING I EVER NEEDED TO KNOW, I LEARNED AT THE MOVIES:
1. Large, loft-style apartments in New York City are well within the price range of most people--whether they are employed or not.
2. At least one of a pair of identical twins is born evil.
3. Should you decide to defuse a bomb, don't worry which wire to cut.
You will always choose the right one.
4. Most laptop computers are powerful enough to override the communications system of any invading alien society.
5. It does not matter if you are heavily outnumbered in a fight involving martial arts -- your enemies will wait patiently to attack you one by one by dancing around in a threatening manner until you have knocked out their predecessors.
6. When you turn out the light to go to bed, everything in your bedroom will still be clearly visible, just slightly bluish.
7. If you are blonde and pretty, it is possible to become a world expert on nuclear fission at the age of 22.
8. Honest and hard working policemen are traditionally gunned down three days before their retirement.
9. Rather than wasting bullets, megalomaniacs prefer to kill their archenemies using complicated machinery involving fuses, pulley systems, deadly gasses, lasers, and man-eating sharks, which will allow their captives at least 20 minutes to escape.
10. During all police investigations, it will be necessary to visit a strip club at least once.
11. All beds have special L-shaped cover sheets that reach up to the armpit level on a woman but only to waist level on the man lying beside her.
12. All grocery shopping bags contain at least one stick of French bread.
13. It's easy for anyone to land a plane providing there is someone in the control tower to talk you down.
14. Once applied, lipstick will never rub off--even while scuba diving.
15. You're very likely to survive any battle in any war unless you make the mistake of showing someone a picture of your sweetheart back home.
16. Should you wish to pass yourself off as a German or Russian officer, it will not be necessary to speak the language. A German or Russian accent will do. (It used to be an English accent for the German).
17. The Eiffel Tower can be seen from any window in Paris.
18. A man will show no pain while taking the most ferocious beating but will wince when a woman tries to clean his wounds.
19. If a large pane of glass is visible, someone will be thrown through it before long.
20. If staying in a haunted house, women will investigate any strange noises in their most revealing underwear.
21. Word processors never display a cursor on screen but will always say: Enter Password Now.
22. Even when driving down a perfectly straight road, it is necessary to turn the steering wheel vigorously from left to right every few moments.
23. All bombs are fitted with electronic timing devices with large red readouts so you know exactly when they're going to go off.
24. A detective can only solve a case once he has been suspended from duty.
25. If you decide to start dancing in the street, everyone you meet will know all the steps.
26. Police departments give their officers personality tests to make sure they are deliberately assigned a partner who is their total opposite.
27. When they are alone, all foreign military officers prefer to speak to each other in English.
"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons."
--Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
--Thomas Watson, Chairman of IBM, 1943
"640K ought to be enough for anybody." -- Bill Gates, 1981
"I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year."
--The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957
"But what ... is it good for?"
--Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip.
"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
--Ken Olson, President, Chairman, and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977
"So we went to Atari and said, 'Hey, we've got this amazing thing, even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or we'll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we'll come work for you.' And they said, 'No.' So then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, 'Hey, we don't need you. You haven't got through college yet.'"
--Apple Computer Inc. founder Steve Jobs on attempts to get Atari and HP interested in his and Steve Wozniak's personal computer.
"This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us."
--Western Union internal memo commenting about A.G. Bell's invention, 1876.
"Everything that can be invented has been invented."
--Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899.
"The concept is interesting and well-formed, but to earn better than a 'C,' the idea must be feasible."
--A Yale University management professor in response to Fred Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)
"Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?"
--H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927.
"I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his face and not Gary Cooper."
--Gary Cooper on his decision not to take the leading role in "Gone With The Wind."
"A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research reports say
America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you make."
--Response to Debbi Fields' idea of starting Mrs. Fields' Cookies.
"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out."
--Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.
"Professor Goddard does not know the relation between action and reaction and the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react. He seems to lack the basic knowledge ladled out daily
in high schools."
--1921 New York Times editorial about Robert Goddard's revolutionary rocket work.
"Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You're crazy."
--Drillers who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his project to drill for oil in 1859.
"Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction".
--Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872
Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson went on a camping trip. After a good meal and
a bottle of wine they laid down for the night, and went to sleep. Some hours
later, Holmes awoke and nudged his faithful friend.
"Watson, look up at the sky and tell me what you see."
Watson replied, "I see millions and millions of stars."
"What does that tell you?"
Watson pondered for a minute.
"Astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and
potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, I observe that Saturn
is in Leo. Horologically, I deduce that the time is approximately a
quarter past three. Theologically, I can see that God is all powerful
and that we are small and insignificant. Meteorologically, I suspect
that we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. What does it tell you?"
"Watson, you idiot. Someone has stolen our tent."
The tribal wisdom of the Dakota Indians, passed on from one generation to the next, says that when you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount. But in modern business (and education and government, etc...), because heavy investment factors and agendas are taken into consideration, other strategies are often tried with dead horses, including the following:
1. Buying a stronger whip.
2. Changing riders.
3. Threatening the horse with termination.
4. Appointing a committee to study the horse.
5. Arranging to visit other sites to see how they ride dead horses.
6. Lowering the standards so that dead horses can be included.
7. Reclassifying the dead horse as "living-impaired."
8. Hiring outside contractors to ride the dead horse.
9. Harnessing several dead horses together to increase speed.
10. Providing additional funding and/or training to increase the dead horse's performance.
11. Doing a productivity study to see if lighter riders would improve the dead horse's performance.
12. Declaring that the dead horse carries lower overhead and therefore contributes more to the bottom line than some other horses.
13. Rewriting the expected performance requirements for all horses.
14. Instituting an affirmative action policy to hire more dead horses, on the basis that they would be fine if only their lack of skills were not held against them.
And, as a final strategy:
15. Promoting the dead horse to a supervisory position
So as to not be outdone by all the redneck, hillbilly, and Texan, Aggie jokes, you know you're from California if :
1. Your co-worker has 8 body piercings and none are visible.
2. You make over $300,000 and still can't afford a house.
3. You take a bus and are shocked at two people carrying on a conversation in English.
4. Your child's 3rd-grade teacher has purple hair, a nose ring and is named Breeze.
5. You can't remember . . is pot illegal?
6. You've been to a baby shower that has two mothers and a sperm donor.
7. You have a very strong opinion about where your coffee beans are grown and you can taste the difference between Sumatran and Ethiopian.
9. You can't remember . . . is pot illegal?
10. A really great parking space can totally move you to tears.
11. A low speed police pursuit will interrupt ANY TV broadcast.
12. Gas costs $1.00 per gallon more than anywhere else in the U.S.
13. A man gets on the bus in full leather regalia and crotchless chaps and you don't even notice.
14. Unlike back home, the guy at 8:30 am at Starbucks' wearing the baseball cap and sunglasses who looks like George Clooney really IS George Clooney.
15. Your car insurance costs as much as your house payment.
16. Your hairdresser is straight, your plumber is gay, the woman who delivers your mail is into S & M, and your Mary Kay rep is a guy in drag.
17. You can't remember . . is pot illegal?
18. It's barely sprinkling rain and there's a report on every news station: "STORM WATCH."
19. You have to leave the big company meeting early because Billy Blanks himself is teaching the 4:00 pm Tae Bo class.
20. You pass an elementary school playground and the children are all busy with their cells or pagers.
21. It's barely sprinkling rain outside, so you leave for work an hour early to avoid all the weather-related accidents . . .
22. Hey!!!! Is Pot Illegal????
23. Both you AND your dog have therapists . . ..and lastly.
24. The Terminator is your Governor.
A man was speeding down the highway, feeling secure in a gaggle of cars all traveling at the same speed. However, as they passed a speed trap, he got nailed with an infrared speed detector and was pulled over. The officer handed him the citation, received his signature and was about to walk away when the man asked, "Officer, I know I was speeding, but I don't think it's fair - there were plenty of other cars around me going just as fast, so why did *I* get the ticket?" "Ever go fishing?" the policeman suddenly asked the man. "Ummm, yeah..." the startled man replied. The officer grinned and added, "Ever catch *all* the fish?"
A drunk decides to go ice fishing, so he gathers his gear and goes walking around until he finds a big patch of ice. He heads into the center of the ice and begins to saw a hole. All of sudden, a loud booming voice comes out of the sky. "You will find no fish under that ice." The drunk looks around, but sees no one. He starts sawing again. Once more, the voice speaks, "As I said before, there are no fish under the ice." The drunk looks all around, high and low, but can't see a single soul. He picks up the saw and tries one more time to finish. Before he can even start cutting, the huge voice interrupts. "I have warned you three times now. There are no fish!" The drunk is now flustered and somewhat scared, so he asks the voice, "How do you know there are no fish? Are you God trying to warn me?" "No", the voice replied. "I am the manager of this hockey arena."
A sweet grandmother telephoned Mount Sinai Hospital. She timidly asked, "Is it possible to speak to someone who can tell me how a patient is doing?" The operator said "I'll be glad to help, Dear. What's the name and room number?" The grandmother in her weak tremulous voice said, "Holly Finkel, room 302."
The Operator replied, "Let me check. Oh, good news. Her records say that Holly is doing very well. Her blood pressure is fine; her blood work just came back as normal and her physician, Dr. Cohen, has scheduled her to be discharged Tuesday."
The Grandmother said, "Thank you. That's wonderful! I was so worried! God bless you for the good news."
The operator replied, "You're more than welcome. Is Holly your daughter?" The Grandmother said, "No, I'm Holly Finkel in 302. No one tells me anything."
