Things to do in the office when you’re bored

Office work dull?…

None of your colleagues appreciate your humour?…

Amuse yourself. Points are awarded on a degree of difficulty basis. You can award yourself extra points for creative execution

ONE-POINT GAGS Run one lap around the office at top speed Groan out loud in the bathroom cubicle (at least one other’non-player’ must be in the bathroom at the time) When they’re not looking, pour most of someone’s fresh cup of coffee into your mug leaving them with an inch of brew. Ignore the first five people who say ‘good morning’ to you Phone someone in the office you barely know, leave your name and say “Just called to say I can’t talk right now. Bye” To signal the end of a conversation, clamp your hands over your ears and grimace. When someone hands you a piece of paper, finger it, and whisper huskily, “Mmmmmmm, that feels soooooo good!” Leave your zipper open for one hour. If anyone points it out, say, “Sorry, I really prefer it this way” Walk sideways to the photcopier. While riding an elevator, gasp dramatically every time the doors open

THREE-POINT GAGS Say to your boss, “I like your style” and shoot him with double-barrelled fingers. Babble incoherently at a fellow employee then ask “Did you get All that, I don’t want to have to repeat it” Page yourself over the intercom (do not disguise your voice) Kneel in front of the water cooler and drink directly from the nozzle (there must be a ‘non-player’ within sight). Shout random numbers while someone is counting

FIVE POINT GAGS At the end of a meeting, suggest that, for once, it would be nice to conclude with the singing of the national anthem (extra points if you actually launch into it yourself). Walk into a very busy person’s office and while they watch you with growing irritation, turn the light switch on/off 10 times For an hour, refer to everyone you speak to as ‘Bob’ Announce to everyone in a meeting that you “really have to go do number two” After every sentence, say ‘mon’ in a really bad Jamacian accent,as in, “the report’s on your desk, mon”. Keep this up for one hour While an office mate is out, move their chair into the elevator. In a meeting or crowded situation, slap your forehead repeatedly and mutter, “Shut up, damm it, all of you just shut up!” At lunchtime, get down on your knees and announce “As God is my witness, I’ll never go hungry again”. In a colleagues diary, write in 10am: “See how I look in tights” Carry your keyboard over to your colleague and ask “You wanna trade?” Repeat the following conversation 10 times to the same person: “Do you hear that?” “What?” “Never mind, it’s gone now” Come to work in army fatigues and when asked why, say, “I can’ talk about it” Posing as a maitre d’, call a colleague and tell him he’s won a lunch for four at a local resturant. Let him go Speak with an accent (French, German, Porky Pig, etc) during a very important conference call. Find the vacuum and start vacuuming around your desk Hang a two-foot long piece of toilet roll from the back of your pants and act genuinely surprised when someone points it out. Rollerblade around the floor throwing sweets

THE HANDS OF TIME

The rules at a particular university were such that if the professor were not
present in the classroom by 15 minutes past the hour, the class was considered a
“walk” and the students were free to leave, with no penalties for missing a
class. The rooms were equipped with the type wall clocks which “jumped” ahead
each minute, in a very noticeable fashion. As it were, these clocks were also
not of the most sophisticated construction. Some enterprising student discovered
that if one were to hit the clock with chalkboard erasers, it would cause the
clock to “jump” ahead 1 minute.
So, it became almost daily practice for these students to take target practice
at the clock (as it would have it, this particular professor was not the most
punctual, and the students considered him severely “absent-minded”). A few well
aimed erasers, and lo, 15 minutes were passed, and class dismissed itself.
Well, when the day for the next exam rolled around, the professor strolled
into the room, passed out the exams, and told them, “You have 1 hour to complete
the exam.”
The professor then proceeded to collect the erasers from around the room,
gleefully took aim at the clock. When he had successfully “jumped” the clock
forward 1 hour, he closed the class and collected the exam papers.
Life does teach some lessons the hard way!

Life in Texas

Just moved to Texas. Now this is a state that knows how to live! Beautiful, sunny days and warm, balmy evenings. Mountains and deserts blended together. What a place! Watched the sunset from a park lying on a blanket. It was beautiful. I’ve finally found my home. I love it here. June 14th Really heating up. Got to 100 today. Not a problem. Live in an air- conditioned home, drive an air-conditioned car. What a pleasure to see the sun every day like this. I’m turning into a real sun worshipper. June 30th Had the backyard landscaped with western plants today. Lots of cactus and rocks. What a breeze to maintain. No more mowing for me. Another scorcher today, but I love it here. July 10th The temperature hasn’t been below 100 all week. How do people get used to this kind of heat? Too bad it’s not a dry heat. Getting used to it is taking longer than I expected. July 15th Fell asleep by the pool. Got third-degree burns over 60% of my body. Missed two days of work, what a dumb thing to do. I learned my lesson though: got to respect the ol’ sun in a climate like this. July 20th I missed Tabby (our cat) sneaking into the car when I left this morning. By the time I got out to the hot car for lunch, Tabby had swollen up to the size of a shopping bag and exploded all over $2,000 worth of leather upholstery. I told the kids she ran away. The car now smells like Kibbles and shit. No more pets in this heat! July 25th Dry God Damn heat, my ass. Hot is hot! The home air conditioner is on the fritz, and AC repairman charged $200 just to drive by and tell me he needed to order parts. July 30th Been sleeping outside by the pool for three nights now. Fifteen hundred dollars in damn house payments and we can’t even go inside. Why did I ever come here? Aug 4th One hundred and fifteen degrees. Finally got the air conditioner fixed today. It cost $500 and gets the temperature down to about 90. Stupid repairman pissed in my pool. I hate this F&%kin’ state. Aug 8th If another wise ass cracks, “Hot enough for you today?” I’m going to tear his F*@#king throat out. Damn heat. By the time I get to work the radiator is boiling over, my clothes are soaking wet, and I smell like roasted F***NG Garfield! Aug 10th The weather report might as well be a damn recording: Hot and sunny. It’s been too hot to f*ck for two damn months and the weatherman says it might really warm up next week. Doesn’t it ever rain in this barren desert? Water rationing has been in effect all summer, so $1,700 worthof cactus just dried up and blew into the #@*&$!% pool. Even a cactus can’t live in this heat. What the F*ck!? Aug 14th Welcome to Hell! Temperature got to 123 today. Forgot to crack the window and blew the #@*&$!% windshield out of the Lincoln. The installer came to fix it and said, “Hot enough for you today?” My wife had to spend the $1,500 house payment to bail me out of jail. Aug 30th Worst day of the damn summer. I’m not leaving the house. The #@*&$!% monsoon rains finally came and all they did is make it muggier than hell. The Lincoln is now floating somewhere in Mexico with its new $500 windshield. That does it, we’re moving back to California for some peace and quiet.

RULES FOR COLLEGE ROOMMATES

1. If someone calls while you are on the phone, do not answer the call waiting
signals, after all your conversation to your boyfriend’s, cousin’s, sister’s,
ex-best friend’s, father-in-law’s, stepson is probably too important to be
interrupted.
2. Of course there is no need to record any messages on a piece of paper.
a. you would have to actually walk towards the kitchen to get to the pad of
paper which requires that you write down a name and check off a few boxes
b. but more importantly, all roommates have mental telepathy and are aware
that if you tell the party on the phone that he/she will be called back at the
callee’s first free moment, the callee will telepathically be aware of this
3. Don’t buy anything for the apartment, use and abuse other roommate�s items
until they are destroyed and wait for them to buy a new one (case example: the
spatula).
4. Feel free to leave any and all dirty dishes wherever you please,
certainly one of your roommates has taken classes in house-cleaning 101 and will
clean up after you. Just because you are big enough to make a mess shouldn’t
obligate you to be big enough to clean it up.
5. If you wake up at 6:45 am and need to take a shower, be sure to lock the
bathroom door! Your roommates should be able and considerate enough to drive to
the nearest gas station to use the toilet. Also, make sure that you take a 40
minute shower–it really stinks when a roommate leaves for work early and you
have to take the bus.
6. Leave all electrical appliances, especially the lights on at all times–we
are paying for the apartment, and there is no need to conserve energy–let other
less important people do that.
7. If you need to use the phone late at night and it is in your roommate�s
room, be sure to wake them up when you go to remove it. It’s important that they
know you are going to make a phone call to your dog!
8. Make sure that when you answer the phone you are as rude as possible to
whoever is calling so that they won’t call back and bother you again–how dare
they interrupt whatever it is that you are not doing!
9. Never, ever, ever, ever empty the trash–if your roommate won’t do it, just
let the apartment stink. You were not born a garbage man, so why lower yourself
to that level especially when you are a princess?
10. If your roommate has a car and drives to work, feel free to ride with her,
but don’t bother to offer her any money for gas. This is the 90’s and gas is
free for all Summer Interns.
11. Make sure that you leave as much hair as possible on the bathroom sinks
and in the shower. Don’t clean out your brush over the trash can, of course your
roommates want to look at pieces of your broken hair each and every time they go
to the bathroom.
12. Don’t ever throw out any of your food that may be moldy because it was
buried behind all the stuff that is piled in the refrigerator. Mold is a
beautiful thing and everyone likes to watch it develop through its stages.
13. Feel free to eat any food that is located in the kitchen. Whether it is in
your cabinet or not, it is free for the taking. Even if it�s not open, your
roommates shop for the entire apartment, not themselves. Oh, and if your
roommate questions you about missing food, pretend you know nothing about
it–you can always blame it on the cookie monster.
14. If one of your roommates has fish, and she doesn’t ask you to feed them
when she leaves town–then don’t bother wasting your time feeding them. They’re
only fish, and they probably won’t need to eat anyway.
15. If you feel like listening to some music and you don’t have a cd player or
stereo, simply remove your roommate’s from her room. She won’t mind if you leave
it, or any of her cd’s, on the floor. After all, if it is not yours, why should
you have to put it away??!!??
16. Make some soup whenever you want, and be sure to leave it in your
roommates pot in the refrigerator for a week or two, if need be. She probably
doesn’t want to use her pot anyway.
17. If your roommate buys a 12 pack of chicken legs and you feel like cooking
for someone else–you should definitely take your roommates chicken and cook it.
Oh, and be sure that you tell the dinner guest that it is your food.
18. If a neighbor (of course a friendly one) comes over and wants some
spaghetti sauce and you don’t have any to give them, feel free to go into a
roommates cabinet and give away theirs. They can always go to the grocery store
and buy some more for themselves. Oh, and don’t tell them that you’ve given it
away either until the ever so friendly neighbor brings back a few drops of it
and thanks you for giving it to them.
19. If your roommate is kind enough to take you to New York with her because
she knows that you have never been there, be sure to do the following:
a. insult your roommate’s friend who shows the 2 of you around the city
b. don’t say thank you for anything and act as bored as possible
c. be sure to tell everyone you see when you get back what a rotten time that
you.

Declaration Of Independence

The Court of King George III
London, England

July 10, 1776

Mr. Thomas Jefferson
c/o The Continental Congress
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Dear Mr. Jefferson:

We have read your “Declaration of Independence” with great interest. Certainly, it represents a considerable undertaking, and many of your statements do merit serious consideration. Unfortunately, the Declaration as a whole fails to meet recently adopted specifications for proposals to the Crown, so we must return the document to you for further refinement. The questions which follow might assist you in your process of revision:

1.In your opening paragraph you use the phrase “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God.” What are these laws? In what way are they the criteria on which you base your central arguments? Please document with citations from the recent literature.

2.In the same paragraph you refer to the “opinions of mankind.” Whose polling data are you using? Without specific evidence, it seems to us the “opinions of mankind” are a matter of opinion.

3.You hold certain truths to be “self-evident.” Could you please elaborate. If they are as evident as you claim then it should not be difficult for you to locate the appropriate supporting statistics.

4.”Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” seem to be the goals of your proposal. These are not measurable goals. If you were to say that “among these is the ability to sustain an average life expectancy in six of the 13 colonies of at last 55 years, and to enable newspapers in the colonies to print news without outside interference, and to raise the average income of the colonists by 10 percent in the next 10 years,” these could be measurable goals. Please clarify.

5.You state that “Whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new Government….” Have you weighed this assertion against all the alternatives? What are the trade-off considerations?

6.Your description of the existing situation is quite extensive. Such a long list of grievances should precede the statement of goals, not follow it. Your problem statement needs improvement.

7.Your strategy for achieving your goal is not developed at all. You state that the colonies “ought to be Free and Independent States,” and that they are “Absolved from All Allegiance to the British Crown.” Who or what must change to achieve this objective? In what way must they change? What specific steps will you take to overcome the resistance? How long will it take? We have found that a little foresight in these areas helps to prevent careless errors later on. How cost-effective are your strategies?

8.Who among the list of signatories will be responsible for implementing your strategy? Who conceived it? Who provided the theoretical research? Who will constitute the advisory committee? Please submit an organization chart and vitas of the principal investigators.

9.You must include an evaluation design. We have been requiring this since Queen Anne’s War.

10.What impact will your problem have? Your failure to include any assessment of this inspires little confidence in the long-range prospects of your undertaking.

11.Please submit a PERT diagram, an activity chart, itemized budget, and manpower utilization matrix.

We hope that these comments prove useful in revising your “Declaration of Independence.” We welcome the submission of your revised proposal. Our due date for unsolicited proposals is July 31, 1776. Ten copies with original signatures will be required

Sincerely,

Management Analyst to the British Crown

Answers in aBible knowledge test

Here are some of the answers given in a bible knowledge test

1. The first book of the Bible is Guinness’s in which Adam and Eve were created from an apple
2. Noah’s wife was Joan of Ark
3. Lot’s wife was a pillar of salt by day and a ball of fire by night
4. Samson slayed the Philistines with the axe of the apostles
5. Unleavened bread is bread made with no ingredients
6. Moses went to the top of Mt. Cyanide to get the 10 Commandments
7. The seventh commandment is, “thou shalt not admit adultery”
8. Joshua led the Hebrews in the battle of Geritol
9. Solomon had 100 wives and 700 porcupines
10. Jesus was born because Mary had an immaculate contraption
11. The people who followed Jesus were called the 2 decibels
12. The epistles were the wives of the apostles
13. One of the opossums was St. Matthew
14. Salome danced in 7 veils in front of King Harrod’s
15. Paul preached acrimony, which is another name for marriage
16. David fought the Finkelsteins, a race of people who lived in Biblical times
17. A Christian should have only one wife. This is called monotony
18. The Jews had trouble throughout their history with unsympathetic Genitals

English Language Mysteries

There’s no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple.
English muffins weren’t invented in England or French fries in France.

Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat.

We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square, and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write but fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce and hammers don’t ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn’t the plural of booth beeth? One goose, two geese. So one moose, two meese? One index, two indices?

Doesn’t it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend, that you comb through the annals of history but not a single annal?

If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn’t preacher praught?

If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?

If you wrote a letter, perhaps you bote your tongue?

Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital?

Ship by truck and send cargo by ship?

Have noses that run and feet that smell?

Park on driveways and drive on parkways?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?

How can overlook and oversee be opposites, while quite a lot and quite a few are alike?

How can the weather be hot as Hell one day and cold as Hell another?

How you noticed that we talk about certain things only when they are absent? Have you ever seen a horseful carriage or a strapful gown? Met a sung hero or experienced requited love?

Have you ever run into someone who was dis-combobulated, grunted, ruly or peccable? And where are all those people who ARE spring chickens or who would ACTUALLY hurt a fly?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling out and in which an alarm clock goes off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race (which, of course, isn’t a race at all).

That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible. And why, when I wind up my watch, I start it, but when I wind up this essay, I end it!

Arguing Effectively

How to Argue and Win Every Time

I argue very well. Ask any of my remaining friends. I can win an
argument on any topic, against any opponent. People know this and steer clear of me at parties. Often, as a sign of their great respect, they don’t even invite me. You too can win arguments. Simply follow these rules:

*Drink liquor.

Suppose you are at a party and some hotshot intellectual is expounding on the economy of Peru, a subject you know nothing about. If you’re drinking some health-fanatic drink like grapefruit juice, you’ll hang back, afraid to display your ignorance, while the hotshot enthralls your date. But if you drink several large martinis, you’ll discover you have STRONG VIEWS about the Peruvian economy. You’ll be a WEALTH of information. You’ll argue forcefully, offering searing insights and possibly upsetting furniture. People will be impressed. Some may leave the room.

*Make things up.

Suppose, in the Peruvian economy argument, you are trying to prove that Peruvians are underpaid, a position you base solely on the fact that YOU are underpaid, and you’ll be damned if you’re going to let a bunch of Peruvians be better off. DON’T say: “I think Peruvians are underpaid.” Say instead: “The average Peruvian’s salary in 1981 dollars adjusted for the revised tax base is $1,452.81 per annum, which is $836.07 before the mean gross poverty level.”

NOTE: Always make up exact figures.

If an opponent asks you where you got your information, make THAT up too. Say: “This information comes from Dr. Hovel T. Moon’s study for the Buford Commission published on May 9, 1982. Didn’t you read it?” Say this in the same tone of voice you would use to say, “You left your soiled underwear in my bathroom.”

*Use meaningless but weighty-sounding words and phrases.

Memorize this list:

Let me put it this way
In terms of
Vis-a-vis
Per se
As it were
Qua
So to speak

You should also memorize some Latin abbreviations such as “Q.E.D.”, “e.g.”, and “i.e.” These are all short for “I speak Latin, and you don’t.”

Here’s how to use these words and phrases. Suppose you want to say, “Peruvians would like to order appetizers more often, but they don’t have enough money.”

You never win arguments talking like that. But you WILL win if you say, “Let me put it this way. In terms of appetizers vis-a-vis Peruvians qua Peruvians, they would like to order them more often, so to speak, but they do not have enough money per se, as it were. Q.E.D.”

Only a fool would challenge that statement.

*Use snappy and irrelevant comebacks.

You need an arsenal of all-purpose irrelevant phrases to fire back at your opponents when they make valid points. The best are:

You’re begging the question.
You’re being defensive.
Don’t compare apples to oranges.
What are your parameters?

This last one is especially valuable. Nobody (other than engineers and policy wonks) has the vaguest idea what “parameters” means.

Here’s how to use your comebacks:

You say: As Abraham Lincoln said in 1873…
Your opponent says: Lincoln died in 1865.
You say: You’re begging the question.
You say: Liberians, like most Asians…
Your opponent says: Liberia is in Africa.
You say: You’re being defensive.

*Compare your opponent to Adolf Hitler.

This is your heavy artillery, for when your opponent is obviously right and you are spectacularly wrong. Bring Hitler up subtly. Say, “That sounds suspiciously like something Adolf Hitler might say,” or “You certainly do remind me of Adolf Hitler.”

So that’s it. You now know how to out-argue anybody. Do not try to pull any of this on people who generally carry weapons.