Humorous Reading

Some Humorous Reading

HUMOR: (as defined by Funk & Wagnalls) n. 1. the quality of anything that is funny or appeals to the comic sense. 2. The ability to appreciate or express what is amusing, comic, etc.

Humor is like beauty, it depends on who is looking and/or reading it. But everyone needs a little humor in their life. Listed below are a few things that *I* found humorous and hope you do also. If you have found something (poem, story etc.) that appeals to you and isn't listed, please let me know and will be glad to add it (but please make it short ).



Abort, Retry Ignore?


Once upon a midnight dreary, fingers cramped and vision bleary,
System manuals piled high and wasted paper on the floor,
Longing for the warmth of bed sheets, still I sat there doing spreadsheets.
Having reached the bottom line I took a floppy from the drawer,
I then invoked the SAVE command and waited for the disk to store,
Only this and nothing more.

Deep into the monitor peering, long I sat there wond'ring, fearing,
Doubting, while the disk kept churning, turning yet to churn some more.
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token.
"Save!" I said, "You cursed mother! Save my data from before!"
One thing did the phosphors answer, only this and nothing more,
Just, "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"

Was this some occult illusion, some maniacal intrusion?
These were choices undesired, ones I'd never faced before.
Carefully I weighed the choices as the disk made impish noises.
The cursor flashed, insistent, waiting, baiting me to type some more.
Clearly I must press a key, choosing one and nothing more,
From "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"

With fingers pale and trembling, slowly toward the keyboard bending,
Longing for a happy ending, hoping all would be restored,
Praying for some guarantee, timidly, I pressed a key.
But on the screen there still persisted words appearing as before.
Ghastly grim they blinked and taunted, haunted, as my patience wore,
Saying "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"

I tried to catch the chips off guard, and pressed again, but twice as hard.
I pleaded with the cursed machine: I begged and cried and then I swore.
Now in mighty desperation, trying random combinations,
Still there came the incantation, just as senseless as before.
Cursor blinking, angrily winking, blinking nonsense as before.
Reading, "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"

There I sat, distraught, exhausted, by my own machine accosted.
Getting up I turned away and paced across the office floor.
And then I saw a dreadful sight: a lightning bolt cut through the night.
A gasp of horror overtook me, shook me to my very core.
The lightning zapped my previous data, lost and gone forevermore.
Not even, "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"

To this day I do not know the place to which lost data go.
What demonic nether world us wrought where lost data will be stored,
Beyond the reach of mortal souls, beyond the ether, into black holes?
But sure as there's C, Pascal, Lotus, Ashton-Tate and more,
You will be one day be left to wander, lost on some Plutonian shore,
Pleading, "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"


Many of us have jobs full of stress and we need a chuckle now and then. The following stress relievers are offered:


1. Press any key to continue or any other key to quit. . . ??
2. Press any key... no, no, no, NOT THAT ONE !
3. Excuse me for butting in, but I'm interrupt-driven.
4. Help! I'm modeming... and I can't hang up ! ! !
5. <------------- The information went data that way ---------------------->
6. Computers make very fast, very accurate mistakes.
7. Computers are not intelligent. They only think they are.
8. Every morning is the dawn of a new error.
9. C:\DOS C:\DOS\RUN RUN\DOS\RUN
10. C:\WINDOWS C:\WINDOWS\GO C:\PC\CRAWL
11. BREAKFAST.COM Halted... Cereal Port Not Responding.
12. BUFFERS=20 FILES=15 2nd down, 4th quarter, 5 yards to go !
13. Access Denied -- nah nah na nah nah
14. The name is Baud........, James Baud.
15. The Definition of an Upgrade: Take old bugs out, put new ones in.
16. C:\ Bad command or file name ! Go stand in the corner.
17. Bad Command. Bad, Bad command! Sit! Stay! Staay....
18. As a computer, I find your faith in technology amusing.
19. Southern DOS: Y'all reckon ? (Yep/Nope)
20. Backups? Backups? We don't NEED no steenking backups.
21. E Pluribus Modem
22. . . . File not found. Should I fake it? (Y/N)
23. Ethernet (n): something used to catch the etherbunny.
24. A Mainframe: The biggest PC peripheral device available.
25. An error? Impossible! My modem is error correcting.
26. CONGRESS.SYS Corrupted: Reboot Washington D.C. (Y/N)
27. Does fuzzy logic tickle ?
28. A computer's attention span is as long as its power cord.
29. Disinformation is not as good as datinformation.
30. Windows: Just another pane in the glass.
31. SENILE.COM found . . . . Out of Memory
32. Who's General Failure & why's he reading my disk?
33. Ultimate office automation: networked coffee.
34. COFFEE.EXE Missing - Insert Cup and Press Any Key.
35. DEFINITION: Flying Saucer: The resultant when a nudist spills their coffee.
35. RAM Disk is not an installation procedure.
35. There are 3 - 35 kinds of people: Those that can count and those than can't
36. Shell to DOS.... Shell to DOS.... Come in DOS, do you Copy?
37. All computers wait at the same speed.
38. DEFINITION: Computer - A device designed to speed and automate errors.
39. Press <CTL><ALT><DEL> to continue . . . .
40. Smash forehead on keyboard to continue . . . .
41. Enter any 11-digit prime number to continue . . . .
42. ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI !
43. E-mail returned to sender - - insufficient voltage.
44. All Wiyht. Rho sritched mg kegtops awound?
45. Error: Keyboard not attached. Press F1 to continue. . . ??
46. DOS Tip #17: Add DEVICE=FNGRCROS.SYS to CONFIG.SYS
47. Hidden DOS secret: add BUGS=OFF to your CONFIG.SYS
48. Best file compression around: DEL *.* gives 100% compression
49. 2 + 2 = 5 for extremely large values of 2.
50. REALITY.SYS Missing -- Organization Halted !

AND, ADMITTEDLY COPIED:
ON THE KEYBOARD OF LIFE, ALWAYS KEEP ONE FINGER ON THE ESCAPE KEY


Your Name

You got from your father
It was all he had to give
So it's yours to use and cherish
for as long as you live.

If you lose the watch he gave you
It can always be replaced
But a black mark on your name, Son,
Can never be erased.

It was clean the day you took it
And a worthy name to bear
When he got it from his father
There was no dishonor there.

So make sure you guard it wisely,
After all is said and done
You'll be glad the name is spotless
When you give it to your son.

Author Edgar Albert Guest (1881-1959)


`Old Folks are worth a Fortune'

Remember, old folks are worth a fortune, with silver in their hair, gold in their teeth, stones in their kidneys, lead in their feet and gas in their stomachs.

I have become a little older since I saw you last, and a few changes have come into my life since then. Frankly, I have become quite a frivolous old gal. I am seeing five gentlemen every day. As soon as I wake up, Will Power helps me get out of bed. Then I go to see John. Then Charlie Horse comes along, and when he is here, he takes a lot of my time and attention.

When he leaves, Arthur Ritis shows up and stays the rest of the day. He doesn't like to stay in one place very long, so he takes me from joint to joint. After such a busy day I'm really tired and glad to go to bed with Ben Gay. What a life!

P.S. The preacher came to call the other day. He said at my age I should be thinking about the hereafter. I told him, "Oh, I do it all the time. No matter where I am - in the parlor, upstairs, in the kitchen, or down in the basement - I ask myself, Now, what am I here after?"

signed
an old gal


The Elusive Ancestor
poem by Merrell Kenworthy

I went searching for an ancestor. I cannot find him still.
He moved around from place to place and did not live a will.
He married where a courthouse burned. He mended all his fences.
He avoided any man who came to take the U.S. Census.

He always kept his luggage packed, this man who had no fame.
And every 20 years or so, this rascal changed his name.
His parents came from Europe. They should be upon some list
of passengers to U.S.A., but somehow they got missed.

And no one else in this world is searching for this man.
So, I play geneasolitaire to find him if I can.
I'm told he's buried in a plot, with tombtone he was blessed;
but the weather took engraving, and some vandals took the rest.

He died before the county clerks decided to keep records.
No Family Bible has emerged, in spite of all my efforts.
To top it off this ancestor, who caused me many groans,
Just to give me one more pain, betrothed a girl named JONES.



Let's not leave out Christmas Humor!




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